#I had to stop myself from making a whole fucking essay here analyzing all the npmd characters help

[anotherdragon]

I remember a post I saw back when the digital ticket came out (or I think it was back then?) which talked about how lautski in abstinence camp and in nerdy prudes were so different because of the fact that they met in completely different situations. In abstinence camp, they were both the odd ones out. it seemed like they were the only ones sent there for reform, while everyone else was just? there for the fun of it? they were the only ones who could understand each other, and were on equal ground. Steph wasn't "The Mayors Daughter" she was just a horny teenage girl. and Pete wasn't "Micro Peter" he was just a horny teenage boy.

Meanwhile, in Nerdy Prudes, its...a bit more complicated than that. Steph is popular. Pete is a loser. Steph is the mayor's daughter, she has power, and pete...doesn't. Neither of them are as free to be themselves as they were in abstinence camp, Stephanie has a reputation to uphold, and Pete needs to worry about being bullied. Different situation, different dynamic. (This is also brought up in If I Loved You. Steph says she would never go for a 'geek', she accuses him of using her to move up and gain status. Pete calls her a 'mean girl', which is the trope Steph represents [kind of. for the sake of this post we're going to pretend its that simple])

This is also something ive noticed in a lot of Michie fics? in canon, at least specifically in npmd, it would be pretty fucked up. pretty much anyone can admit that. Though something that I've seen happen a lot is the shifting of their dynamic. Max is no longer "The Bully" and Richie is no longer "The Victim". They are both put in a situation where they are on somewhat equal ground, and their dynamic changes because of that. I guess thats part of what interests me about both of them, not even as a ship but as indivisual characters.

What else is there to Max other than being the bully, the villain. He isnt alive long enough for any sort of depth to be given to him, and seeing what happens whenever any characters (not including miss holloway) dies and comes back to life, there is a sold chance that his ghost is a 'corrupted' version of him. His ghost fully plays into the role he was given, The Jock, The Bad Guy. One of his lines in npmd (the song) is "The jock you demonized" and thats what happened to him. After he dies, he isn't a person anymore, he is a caricature. What all of the characters are forced to become, The Mean Girl, The Nerd, The Horny Teen, The Victim, The Evangelical. And after his death. he fully embraces it. We dont get to see whatever depth he might have had to him, as we got to see with all the other characters as they became more fleshed out.

And Richie, bless his soul, never got to be more than the victim. He existed solely to die. The first scene in the musical, the first thing that we saw of him was his death. He was doomed from the beginning to always be the first out. He was never meant to live past the first act. His purpose in npmd was to die, so he never got to be more. But what would he be in another story? One where things were nicer, one where he wasnt forced into a role, one where he could just be himself?

What would any of them be?

[leynaeithnea]

( sweety a 100% answer only when you have energy don't worry I know these essays are NOT easy to cook up hahaha ) (also thank you so much for using your energy on me and these little discussions we have going on, you're the best akskksks)

22. Different beast

I'm going to expose myself for how clueless I am and you are allowed to judge but just a little. When I listened to the song for the first time I had no clue what that whistling sound was, I took it in stride and went on. Then I started seeing posts of people being like "he shot the siren " "not Ody shooting the siren " and don't ask me why but my brain went " Yes , clearly Odysseus got a whole ass pistol and shot her " even though I KNOW his whole thing is being a really good archer and that is how Penny recognizes him when he gets back to ithaca et cetera et cetera

So yeah, thank the gods for you and your animatics playlist bc they finally helped me realize my man is clearly using fucking bow and arrow

Okay back on track you are so right he is so mean and pissed and scary akksjsjsns

The drums and the whole part about his real wife and his plan are fricking glorious, no notes , also once again thank the gods for your perspective bc yes!! He's clearly showing his fatal flaw!! The hubrys that makes him feel untouchable, like he can overcome anything!!!

The chorus of " we are a different beast" and "he is a different beast" make me go ballistic bc they are so supportive! They're like "see that one? Yeah he's our captain and he's ruthless now , and so are we btw :))" and it feels to me like they are proud of him?? Which is a huge mistake and they'll soon learn that maybe it would have been better for their sakes if they had greeted the world with open arms or smth

( No idea what you are talking about bc I am NOT good with subtleties like these BUT if you're right that would be cool as shit , and I don't put it past Jorge to do something so insane just to stay true to the story and the fact that they can't hear a thing )

The sirens DO sound so eerie ajsjsjjsjs I love how the animatic in your playlist doesn't make them pretty and just humans with tails but actual slimy fish-like monsters bc that's what they are !!!

THIS MONSTER REALLY DOES RAWR RAWR RAWR I WAS SO BAFFLED WHEN HE KILLED THEM LIKE THAT

( hahahhahahahaOH MY GOD not Ody snacking on the sirens like it's fucking sushi I CAN'T BREATHE the fact that you choose to interpret "he is the one who feasts " like that is so iconic of you I love you so much I don't think the image of feral Ody eating the sirens will ever leave my mind OH GOD it's so unhinged HAHAHHAHA )

Btw super random but the last line being Odysseus makes me think a little tiny bit about the ending of Remember them (?) bc that one time he choose to let the monster live and paid the price for it , this time he does the exact opposite, becoming he himself the bloodthirsty monster. Is this anything? I might be overanalyzing stuff here lol

Btw no, I don't know how we got here and I don't know when I stopped asking questions and started analyzing everything with you as well but yeah, I'm not complaining at all about the outcome this is so much fun akskksksnsns

Ngl these give me much more energy and motivation than they take I was just knocked out from walking so much for three days BUT ALSO i wont judge you I Probably wouldnt have known myself if it wasnt for the stage directions and animatics in the livestream segsegisegsej and the animatics in general and watching a good bunc of Jorges rambling and reading up on other peoples interpretations and also! actually watching a lot of reactors on youtube, if youre ever bored and want more EPIC content and watch people slowly suffer and loose their mind over the brilliance of this musical I recommend watching people react to it and analyze it (lmk if youre interest bc then ill send you a list of youtubers for that, and if youre already doing that ignore me seigjs) without those people i really would have not caught MOST things really

Btw super random but the last line being Odysseus makes me think a little tiny bit about the ending of Remember them (?) bc that one time he choose to let the monster live and paid the price for it , this time he does the exact opposite, becoming he himself the bloodthirsty monster.

Youre right I think and additionally I also think it's a first hint to song 37.....I kind of want to keep my analysis here mostly free of spoilers for the next three sagas...but if you know you know :))) so excited for it 23. Scylla the way every single female voice in this musical is slaying so hard oml I loveee the melody in this one, and the way Odysseus sings "The lair of Syclla, this is our only way home" its so eery and foreboding and grim And then Syclla omglllllll the way these lyrics have double meaning and the way they get sung parallel to whats happenign on the ship ITS SO GOOD

Deep Down "You're quiet today" Deep Down "...not much to say" (ODY KNOWS WHAT HES GETTING THEM INTO; HE CANT BRING HIMSELF TO PRETEND THINGS ARE FINE WHILE HE IS GUARANTEED TO HAVE PEOPLE KILLED TODAY; HES HIDING IT DEEP DOWN" Deep down (why does the choir join in exactly in this part I wonder??? WHO Else is hiding things? is it Scyllas heads or the crew that sings this? (actually, imma look this up in the livestream reaction from Mortius) (ok i checked the livestrema didnt say, maybe its just scyllas heads slowly rising up or smth like that) you hide a reason for shame (WHEN WE FIRST LISTNe, this soundS like the line is about Eurolychus because of what he says directly afterwards BUT IF YOU KNOW the second tiem you listen you realize nu uh htis is about BOTH of them, because Ody is alSO hidign a reason for shame. he is leading his men into this lair without telling them about it because their ears where blocked while he had his chat with sirenope and they were busy catching the other Sirens so they dont know about Syclla---) "Ive got a secret I can no longer keep" he tried back on Circes Island but Ody just shut him down because he wasnt ready to hear it yet. He his now the monster rawr rawr rawr, he is ready. Deep down (MORE harmonies omgg haunting, beautiful) you know we are the same (I still havent read up on Scyllas mythology, but I suppose we can break it down to "we are monsters and do what we must") "I opened the windbag while you were asleep" STUPID MAN YOU WERE IN SIGHT OF ITHICA YOU COULDVE WAITED UNTIL YOU Were oN LAND AND NOT ON the oceAN ANYMore (in homers odyssey i believe its confirmed that Anticlea, Odys Mom saw the boats, and the storm and thought her son had died and then threw herself off the cliff because of that, so thats FUN) Leaving them feeling betrayed Breaking the bonds that you've made (AGAIN THESE LYRICS ARE SO GENIUS, this is OBVIOUSL YABout Odysseus feeling betrayed by Eury for what he has done, either unexpectantly or just confirmed at last, BUT ITS ALSO FORSHADOWING FOR MUTINY, I LOVE JORGE SO MUCH THIS IS SO GENIUS) "Im so sorry" ...yeah ... There is no price we won't pay (NOW THIS is referring to Ody, he got his confirmation. he knows he must sacrifice men to make it through to scylla. Hes ready. He is the monster rawr rawr rawr) "forgive me" ...sorry buddy We both know what it takes to survive (again, refering to what Odys about to do, also Thunderbringer Foreshadowing...omg this is so goooood)

"Full Speed Ahead" the callback to that song T_T Deep down, we only care for ourselves... (He iS THE MONSTER RAWR RAWR RAWR) Eurylochus, light up six torches (...he is the monster rawr rawr rawr......also one of the Torches is held by Eury, its confirmed :D ) Deep down, we're lonely demons from hell (....fair but Hel is norse mythology and bible isnt it----------anyway) Captain...something approaches (THEY DIDNT KNOW WHAT THEY GOT THEMSELVES INTO) Hello (creepy, pretty, haunting) The strings after that omggg and then the drop before "ROW FOR YOUR LIVES!" (just get tf out of there asap) Drown in your sorrow and fears (THE GRIP IN HER VOICE; also the way it becomes so BRUTAL now) (first torch guy gets gored) Choke on your blood and your tears (second torch guy gets gored) Bleed 'til you've run out of years, We must do what it takes to survive (third torch guy gets gored) Give up your honor and faith (fourth torch guy gets gored, Eury tries to help one of the grew members) Live out your life as a wraith (foreshadowing????? Eury hands the torch to the one he just helped up, to get his hands free to fight, fifth torch guy gets gored, Eury realizes what the deal with the torches is, he turns around in panic realizing he just handed his friend a death sentence he tries to save him) Die in the blood where you bathe We must do what it takes to survive (sixth torch guy gets gored, Eury is too late to reach him, he falls to his knees as the exit Scyllas Lair, Odysseus looks onward and doesnt look at the bloodbath of the Ship) (this is seen in the animatic Jorge commissioned for this scene, its SO good, but terrifying to watch at like almost 6am at that point) THe lyrics are so haunting and good We are the same you and ... I AND the OdY JOINS IN oN THe "I" BECAUSE This song HAS NEVER REALLY BeEN ABOUT EURY ITS ALL BEEN ABOUT HIM AND His WILLINGINGness NOW TO SACRIfice hiS oWN MEN TO geT IT HOME ALIVE HE IS THe monSTER RAWR RAWR RAWR ok i think this was like the whole song line by line, but its just so GOODODDD

[dragonlights]

The tl;dr of this post- as this  i had a negative experience with someone on tumblr, based on my being an adult and liking kids cartoons, and it hit a nerve, both as to my own insecurities, as well as a lot of insecurities i had when i was younger.

To anyone coming up who needs to hear this- Enjoying things meant for kids is fine. It never stops being fine. Just don’t be a creep to/around Actual Young People, and you’re Good.

If you think that what you like, somehow, makes you better than other people?

Grow the fuck up.

Rest is a shroom-fuelled rant of the above, and under the cut.

I’m going to record this here, because this is tumblr and few of you know me as more than a stream of reblogs- which is how i prefer it, but i’m on shrooms atm so pardon me a second, and this is gonna be LONG cause i’m 99% words and tend to write Essays when i get going- but like.

I had this experience the other day, where someone was asking why seemingly well-adjusted adults would like shows aimed at kids, and i responded- in good faith- that it’s nice, it gives a sense of hope that things aimed at adults tend to not- or that it’s otherwise mired in so much cynicism that it’s a slog to get through.

Yes, i was vagueing rick and morty, the whole ‘rick having vomit hanging from his mouth’ thing squicks me out, i’m weird about vomit, hate nausea, moving on.

Like. The consensus was that me, and people like me, are somehow... infantalizing ourselves? and finding comfort in the simple, in the childish, is bad somehow. Leave that to the children, you can’t analyze anything deeper than a petri dish, etc.

But like.

Life is already so hard. for so many of us. Systems that we all have to be a part of to SURVIVE are simultaneously wringing us dry of every bit of excess time we have. To them, we are numbers, and the numbers we need to live could- instead- be the numbers of shareholders, and Ceos, etc.

And, to get through it all, and to make money that we now need to live, cause we live in a Society, and societal agreements, etc. etc. some people make art. and some of that art is for kids. and they have bright colors, neat characters, etc.

Life is hard, if i want to find joy in steven universe, gravity falls, SVTFOE, etc.- there’s nothing wrong with that. Not inherently.

I just spent half an hour, writing and re-writing about yes, i can analyze things deeper than a petri dish, etc. But y’know what? Justifications aside? Life is hard, i’m an adult, but like.

I’m human.

We’re ALL human.

Stuff made for kids? Bright lights! Hope! Friendship!!!

Yeah, as an adult you’ve experienced more of that stuff, and the negative that can come along with it, and have a wider flavor-pallet for emotional experiences, but that doesn’t mean that suddenly that stuff... just doesn’t appeal to you? What’s the POINT of depression, of the struggle, of the sweet ache of longing- if not to reach the bliss of understanding? of connection? of friendship???

of hope?

To pretend that somehow that’s... bad? Suddenly? Because i’ve lived through twenty six years, so somehow i should just be... beyond that stuff? Nope! Can’t enjoy hopefull stuff with bright lights and shiny colors! That stuff is ‘for kids’ and if you like things ‘for kids’ you are Bad and Wrong and Probably A Creep,

Adulthood is just the name we give for the period of our lives where we’re responsible for our own continued existence. For some of us that means meds, eyeglasses, eating our vegetables, remembering to exercise, etc. For all of us, it means participating in some way in a system that reduces us to profit to be extracted.

This experience stuck with me for days, nagging at me, and i kept asking myself- why. I Know it’s okay to like things for kids, there’s no harm, i know who i am, etc.

But... i didn’t always know that.

I was a kid, and then a teenager, and i have Mental Illnesses- one of which is Anxiety- and life is hard, and KEEPS HAPPENING, and it’s reflex then like it’s still reflex now to worry like...

is this okay?

Can i enjoy this thing?

Am i being Bad somehow???

And yes, you should look at where the money you’re spending is going, because some people use that stuff to fund movements that result in people being hurt- usually because it’s funding stuff that says it’s not okay to live your life how you want and to be yourself.

Lots of stuff? It’s fine. Just enjoy it. If you’re horny about it keep that stuff away from kids. Protect them from people who want to be horny at them.

Besides that?? Write fanfic. Fanart. Enjoy the bright lights, the friendship, the hope, the connection- because what some adults forget is that-

We’re ALL IN IT Y’ALL. Kids are learning the ropes, and should be protected from people who want to exploit their Inexperience with Existence for Creepy Reasons, Not To Be Enumerated Here- but We’re All Here. Together. Experiencing life and-

We all were kids. We all are now responsible for our continued existence. And i want my continued existence to include cartoons- because somehow, in the time between me being 5 and now? they kept being good! In fact, THEY GOT BETTER.

THEY HAVE GAY CARTOONS NOW!!!

IT’S GREAT!!!!

I’m a whole ass adult who’s struggling with stuff cause of mental illness, but the reason i’m struggling through it all is so that i can see another day- and if what brings that day meaning is, for me, the She-ra remake? Who cares?

For others- and this is the show that the other people had been saying it was bad to like- it’s Miraculous Ladybug.

I haven’t watched the show, but lots of people make neat art about it, which i enjoy. Sometimes the kids are bakers, sometimes they’re superheroes, sometimes they’re angsty- it’s great, people who watch it seem to be happy, good for them.

But what made life hard? As a kid, as a teenager, and even now?

Judgy pricks who get THEIR enjoyment mocking perfectly harmless behavior.

I’m sure it finds them friends. I’m sure it gives them hope. I’m sure it makes them REAL HAPPY.

On tumblr, sometimes it gets couched in language as if it’s somehow social justice-related. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes it’s related to mental illness, and sometimes it isn’t. Gender, sexuality, ethnicity, etc.

Sometimes there are even good points, solid underlying concepts worth considering for integrating into your worldview.

But y’know? If you’re not hurting anyone??

You can enjoy what you want, and anyone who tells you otherwise needs to grow the fuck up.

[signofwolf]

Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas – book review

Series: Throne of Glass #7 Genre: YA, Fantasy Theme: Fae, magic users, war Warnings: mentions of torture, imprisonment Star rating: 0,5/10

Why did I pick this up?: I wanted to end this horrible series once and for all.

[Heavy spoilers ahead]

To make myself clear, before this book I quite liked this series. It wouldn’t place in my top 100 books, not even close, but it was a pleasant pageturner to listen to in audiobooks when working.

Language

Let’s start slow. I lack the words to express how much I hate the words ‘male’, ‘female’ and ‘mate’ after this series. Not even gonna try to express my trauma. But these 3 gems aside, Sarah J. Maas needs a dictionary. Or compress her work to a manageable size. Everything sang, Everyone melted, Every man roared, Every woman trembled, Everyone was unleashing themselves at least once a chapter (number of chapters: 122) ). And now I know definitely too much about Yrene’s ‘womb’. I know so much…

Dynamism

I thought that was a book about a war with heavy action content. Oh boy, I was wrong. This 984-pages monstrosity has maybe 5 pages of action. If you squint.

Every sequence, where by design action should take place was followed by one of two scripts:

Few sentences of action and then a few pages long internal monologue. Often repeated with the same character after the next few sentences of action, or with the next character and then the next (sometimes the first character made a second appearance and then everything would go all over again). And the word ‘character’ used in these sentences is not because I’m rambling. This book is written that way!

Few sentences of action and then action stops, and we are graced by a few pages long conversation. In the middle of a battle. Or spying. Or in Erawan’s chambers, when his castle is going down, and he is running up the stairs...

Time

Leaving alone the fact that apparently all series took less than a year (till this book I estimated the plot for about 3 years, Wiki told me it was 2, but Maas knows best), because that is a can of worms in itself. Time in this one? I honestly have no idea. There were many ‘few weeks of travel’ parts with two main groups of POVs. Personally my only time indicator was ‘Orynth won’t fall till Aelin gets here’. But nothing just fit. And I saw Lost Song when in the last episode we as the audience realized that our two POVs parallel storylines are in reality millennia apart. Lost Song made sense.

Emotional loading

… there wasn’t any. Really, it was like reading a milk label. Every time the scene was potentially emotionally impactful, Maas went ahead to overexplaining EVERY. GOD. DAMMED. THING. And it was abso-fucking-lutely everything. ‘Emotional dilemma? Let’s current POV explain it! 2 pages should be enough… Damn maybe it wasn’t enough. I know! I’ll switch POVs and explain it through the other character!’ <= My impression of Maas’ thought process. I’m fairly sure that the record was 7 POVs explaining the same thing in the row, but I was blacking out a little, so I cannot be sure.

And if that wasn’t enough, this book had a second way to defuse tension: random-plastic-repetitive-badly_written-smut. Really badly written and really repetitive. How could you not feel the spicy bits, when Manon (cruel, self assured 100+years old witch-queen) reacts the same in bed as Elide (20years old, virgin, ex-slave). And the rest of them were the same, there weren’t ANY distinctions.Just copy-paste.

The next point in current case: Someone died, it was impactful, I really liked the character, so I got sad. But then 2 of our characters came out of the room with a body, and after a paragraph of grieving they started making out, and then I was regaled with 2-pages-long description of melting cores. That was the place then this book stopped being badly written, and started being distasteful.

Characters

Remember when I was writing about switching POVs (which is 15(!!!) In the whole book. Oh and an omniscient narrator in places when our current POV was grieving too much to overthink something, but Maas still wanted to inform us about something)? They were all savagely murdered in the worst way: character mutilation. Somewhere between books our maybe-not-that-original but colorful and interesting characters became carbon copies of each other. I have no idea how many times I didn’t realise there was a POV switch. The only indicator was a change of pronoun, or when Maas was telling us the name of a current narrator. These were the only ways. And if you can't distinguish if you are in Dorian’s head or in Manon’s, that is the sign of a really BAD writing.

Romance

…there wasn't any. In all this book there wasn't any naturally progressing romantic scene. There were Maas’ endgame pairings which were sexing or pinning. As the author Maas loves to write about soulmates. And it’s not a bad thing itself. When I want some fluffy story I often tag ‘soulmates’ in AO3 and voila, +10 to good mood. But God above, it is not cute when every pair you write about are ‘true mates’ just BECAUSE. It is the only way Maas sees a relationship, as a fated pairing, written in the wake of the universe by the God himself. There is no choice, nor the work to put in it. They are the author's OTP and that means that they are perfect and they should have children right now. Point in case:

Guy was treating a girl like a shit on his sole, including throwing her naked out of tent, on a snow, with their friends present, all the while abusing her verbally in a worst way. But it’s okay, because when she almost died he realised his mistakes and apologised. Two scenes later, he was forgiven, because... fated mates?

The pathos

I know that many people don't like this type of scenes, but it's not my case. I’m reading by picturing images and not repeating words. I like sequences that I can imagine to be grand and glorious, even if they are a little corny. That said, the pathos scenes were the most disappointing ones for me. Maas likes to write parts that are more picturesquely exalted than logically possible [point in case: meeting of 5 armies/forces in the random patch of sand in Empire of Storms, and it being painted as ‘an Aelin’s great plan’. I laughed myself silly at that. But not taking logic and all the plot holes into consideration that was a nicely looking scene. In Kingdom of Ash that wasn’t the case. I would say that the author wanted to paint us a renaissance painting every 20 pages or so. In my opinion, every time she failed miserably. Each and every of those scenes was or to farfetched to be even remotely realistic, and evidently written only for a sake of the picture, or just plainly stupid.

Example, and it’s so priceless a scene, that I just need to share it: Battle of Orynth, 25th day or so (time in this book doesn’t exist), the 13. sacrificed themselves (like thousands before them but hush). And then, time stops: grieving Manon is going through the city, they open the gates for her (yes, the siege is still on), she goes to the place where they died, after her come out all of our main heroes, and half the city itself with ‘flowers, rocks and precious possessions’ and they lay it there in a tribute to these brave (evil till 2 months ago) witches. I honestly can’t remember when was the last time I saw such an abstract scene. It’s a material for an essay in itself. No, I could not take it seriously.

Additionally, it's hard to make an impact as every damn sentence is grand and lofty. In the end it became truly pathetic, Aelin vs Maeve was unreadable.

Character deaths:

Let's make a quick count: main characters in a series at the start of KoA: 12 secondary characters in a series at the start of KoA: 20ish minor and total background: a lot more

Death count: main: 0 secondary: 3 minor: 2 (11 if we try very hard)

Resurrections: 1 (possibly 3, but not gonna analyze it)

Did you feel emotions of this impossible war against this all-encompassing, all-powerful, invincible, immortal, cunning Evil with armies from 3 continents and 2 worlds? No? Me neither.

Oh well, but there were a lot of deaths of ordinary soldiers. I’m quite certain that all of Terrasen’s army was at least twice brought back to life for them to die in these numbers.

Logic or lack thereof

Oh, and let’s not forget about the Deus ex machina army of unbeatable, magical elves on wolves, from legends, living for the past thousands of years in the unreachable lands of the north, because they managed to run from the surprise attack 10 years earlier. Did I mention that they came from portals, which the whole book was telling us were impossible to make in this scenario? After the previous saviour army was already fighting there for a day? And that Aelin didn’t know they would come for sure (how did she contact them again?)? Even though they were waiting in the full armours for these portals? Ah, and also: that army didn’t do anything. They just came and fought for maybe 4 minutes. And there were just so many things like that!

And if we’re on the topic of armies I present you: ‘My favourite absurd-list in the series: allied armies’.

(As a comparison, in A Song of Ice and Fire by J.R.R Martin, in 7 kingdoms of Westeros, at the peak of war there were 7 forces present, but not all were even engaged in a war.)

First the ones that made sense:

Armies of Terrasen’s Lords (counted as one, not gonna nitpick)

The Khaganate army (also counted as one)

Galan Ashryver’s armada

Whitethorn fraction

Rebel Ironteeth witches

…should Dorian be counted as an ‘army’?

And there were some that did not:

Ansel of Briarcliff’s army

The Silent Assassins

Mycenians

Wild Men of the Fangs

Army of magical elves on wolves

And the ‘I don’t even know’ category:

Crochan witches

Overpowering and overreaching

Section title tells it all. The stakes were too high. I was honestly waiting for Aelin to become Super Saiyan and start to throw planets at Maeve and Erawan. I won’t spoil if this happened.

In my opinion it could be a really great series, if our list of villains ended with Arobynn and King of Adarlan, and the list of Aelin titles with an assassin and a princess. We could have had two main fight plots: one emotional with Arobynn, when Aelin would have to face a damage he had done to her, and overcome it. And the second one, with freeing Terrasen from Adarlan’s rule. That’s it. There was an asshole, power hungry king, who feared magic and wanted to rule the East part of a continent. A lot of plot, but not so much that we stopped to care, or didn’t have time to cover everything. We could really get to know what Terrasen and his people were like and not JUST GET TOLD that it was ‘the greatest place in the world’ every damn 20 pages.

Plus…should Dorian be counted as an ‘army’? It's a REALLY valid question.

Climaxes

IIf I have to write a list of things that disappointed me in this book, this review would be thrice its current size, but one of the worst grievances I have is the complete lack of acknowledging the plotlines that had been started. This book series has overall 4 372 pages (not counting novellas) and 12 main characters (still not gonna address this). All of them had their storylines and arcs but if they weren't tied up in the previous instalments they wouldn’t be in this one. I get it, Maeve and Erawan got beaten (in an extremely unsatisfactory way) but they were only a background in this series' plots.

Aelin Well, Aelin was one of 3 people (+2 paragraf-long insertion from Nesryn and Chaol) who got their own POV’s after the battle (second was technically Rowan, who was ‘Aelin’s POV outside of Aelin’.The third Dorian, who got almost a full two pages). And from this we got that: she got crowned, Aedion got his bond and that Maas have no idea how the city looks after weeks of siege. In her case what angered me the most was ‘Terrasen is my home’ subplot. Only in this tome we read at least 3 times that Aelin will be okay with dying, if only she gets to see Terrasen one last time, or if she get to die on Terrassen soil. But you know what? Maas forgot to write the scene where Aelin actually ‘comes in’.

Mannon Didn't get her own POV after the battle, but here’s what we’ve got: She is going to the Wastes with Croachans and Ironteeth. Whait. What? Yes, that was the ending of this 500+ years of feud. They fought together and they decided to unite their two species, completely forgetting more than half a millenia of slaughter. I can only hope that there were at least some talks behind the scenes… NO! F*** NO! This isn’t how it works!

Rowan, Dorian, Chaol, Yrene, Lysandra, Aedion, Lorcan, Elide, Nesryn, Sartaq Lived happily ever after

Secondary minor and total background characters Survived (I acknowledge that they would be ignored in most books’ epilogues, but this abomination is almost 1000 pages of nothing!!).

Good Scenes

That saying, this book actually had 4 good scenes:

Crochan witches go to war - gathering-forces-to-fight trope, which is my *love-always trope* so I’m not even sure if it was relatively good, or if I’m just a slut for this trope. It was still only a paragraph long though.

[recurring] The children’s tale Aelin repeated to herself to remember who she is.

‘Lorcan Lochan’ - the only marginally funny scene in the whole book

I actually found Darrel making Evangeline his heir charming. Even if circumstances were far-fetched at least.

But the words crime of this book? It was agonisingly, mind-numbingly boring. If the overexplaining and repetitions were to be taken out I highly doubt that there would be 300 pages left.

For these 33 hours of audiobook I suffered through I give it half a star. Because Abraxos exist.

Please see my garishly accurate cover on my instagram! You can also like it there :D

instagram | goodreads

[liljungie]

MVP | Jeon Jungkook | AU 3

Pairing: [ soccer player] jungkook x reader

Warnings: angst | slight smut

Part 1 / part 2 / part 3

Masterlist

_

How am I gonna get out of this?!

Panic rush through me as I look anywhere but her,It's not like I can say it was raining because the weather today was extremely sunny not a single cloud in the sky.

So that was out of the question and I started to think of anything that I could pass the blame on other than the weather.

"Well.." i scratch the back of my head suddenly every word I know vanished into thin air, making it impossible to form a sentence she looked at me waiting "Uh..jimin" I clap my hands together as I speak to grab her attention " p-pulled another prank on me" I said the first words that came to mind hoping they came out clearly "oh you poor thing! I'll tell kookie to talk to him you're a lady jimin can't treat you like that!" She huffed in annoyance.

Ugh why is she so nice? I can see why Jungkook fell for her...if only she wasn't so damn nice to me maybe I'd hate her enough to push away the guilt.

"I-It's okay- really.. jimin and I joke like that a lot he's only getting back at me for putting powdered peppers in his boxers.." I tried to laugh at the end but it came out so awkward and well...fake. but she luckily went with it "Oh that's mean" she says with a scowl on her face "not gonna lie I was weirded out seeing you in my boyfriend's Jersey"she laughed nervously, "but I think Jungkook witnessed what happened" she smiled laughing at the end which I assume she was laughing at the situation or me..

I felt a lump in my throat form I went pale at her words, my hands start to sweat so I quickly rub them against my jeans laughing along with her.

"I gotta go shower now bye!" I yell behind me walking fast to my room so I avoid any more questions "yeah you smell like semin...jimin is so mean" I hear her yell after me

I cringe as I hear her words "I'm sorry jimin" I say to one one, under my breath as I close the door behind me letting out a sigh of relief but deep down guilt ate away at me...

///

A week passed, I hadn't seen Jungkook since that day.

he didn't even try to reach me so I didn't bother either, my heart was mayhem but maybe not seeing him was for the better.

Even though it tore me apart inside.

My exams and assignments took most of my time, I barely had time for myself anyway.

I was chilling in my room in the afternoon writing an essay I had to hand in Monday while listening to music.

It was finally the weekend I'm done with my exams but I had a few things to hand out still and I finally got around it.

I faintly hear a knock on my door and pause the song and slide my chair over to the door opening it.

To find her, dressed nicely make up and hair done to perfection, she smiled at me "Jungkook is taking me on a date!" She squealed as my heart dropped.

she pushed the door more open and twirled in the middle of my room, her yellow dress was just above her knees, making her glow like a star "how do I look?!" She smiled as she looked me in the eyes waiting for my answer.

"Stunning" I replied my face drained of color I swolled the lump in my throat heat prickling down my neck as I stare at her, hurt evident on my features, she was checking herself on the tall mirror I had beside my desk.

He was taking her out on a date? A date?!

My mind was still processing what she said, so he does have free time to take her on dates but not text me at all?! Not even once this whole week!

"Really?!" She squealed once again, she was so happy seems like even gravity couldn't hold her down she was skipping with happiness.

The things I'd do to be her...

I only nodded my head, I felt like a shook up can of soda that was going to burst soon, with glossy eyes I tried to keep looking at her but I couldn't. I turned away.

"I have been dying to spend time with him now that my exams are over I'm gonna be by his side every single day" she says her eyes glowing. Probably day dreaming about the 'date'

"Mhm that's nice" I say as I slide my chair back to my desk, I didn't know I was crying, I curse under my breath. I can't let her see me.

"Oh I'm sorry if I disturbed you" she finally noticed that I was studying and turned to me thankfully my hair covered the side of my head so she couldn't see my face "I'll leave you now so you can study okay?" She giggled and walked to the door opening it slowly

"Fighting _____!" She shouted her fist in the air cheering me on as if that would make it easier I only sent her a small smile with a nod then my eyes went back on the screen the letters were so blurry.

"oh and I'm spending the weekend at his place so don't wait for me!" She giggled, I felt my chest tighten as I heard her say that, seconds passed and I heard my bedroom door closed shut. Finally.

I let out a sigh that felt like a sob I tried to distract myself by writing more, I turned up the volume of the music I tied my hair up to cool me down. frustrated I let it fall on my shoulders...nothing worked.

Nothing could shut my thoughts off, all I could think of was her in his arms, in his lap, kissing and touching him.

I could see images of him kissing and holding her like he held me...

"_____ I'm leaving now bye!" I heard her faintly yell from the living room breaking me away from my trance a few moments of silence and right when I heard her shut the apartment door close. I threw my phone at the mirror she was infront of minutes ago it all shattered along with my phone screaming in frustration I fell to the floor sobbing.

he consumed every inch of me he took over every part of me, and it's my falut that I let him get to me this way.

This close.

I felt my body burn and ache until I couldn't feel anything anymore and sleep took over me.

///

I woke up to banging on the door I sat up, confused, I looked around I was on the floor in the middle of my room I looked at the watch on the wall it read 12 am.

I must have slept for a long time.

I heard the banging again but louder this time oh so I wasn't dreaming? I wanted to yell her name so she could open the door instead but I remembered...everything.

I found it hard to stand up, or seems like my heart couldn't bare to do anything I'm so out of it, I feel so numb and so hurt. That even standing was too much for me to take.

I made my way to the door. in the dark living room I turned on the spot lights to provide a bit of light in so I could see better, my eyes were swollen from how much I cried and my vision is still blurry from the tears.I move my hair out of my face as I walk to the door slowly.

I open the door and there he stood.

Jungkook.

He sighs relieved and pulls me towards him.

"Oh my fucking God I was so afraid" he says, holding me tighter.

I was astonished I must be dreaming this, this can't be... she was over at his place how did he get out?

He pulled away and looked at me almost analyzing my face "I was so worried!" He tells me "I called you so many times why didn't you pick up?!" He scolds his grip on my arms was tight

He did?

How come it's ringing didn't wake me up?

Then I remember how I threw it at the mirror and I don't know if it was still working for not, I need a new phone for sure it seems.

I pull away and he looked at me hurt that I pushed him lightly off of me "you didn't text or call this whole week why does it suddenly matter?" I ask raising my eyebrows, arms crossed as I look up at him waiting for the answer that I longed for this whole week.

"_____" he sighed as he rubbed his temple "I'm sorry I couldn't I was dealing with a lot" he stated, clearly he didn't want to talk about it so I dropped the topic because I just don't think it matters anymore. It won't go anywhere because if there's one thing I'm sure of is jungkook keeps to himself and there's no way you'll ever get something out of him.

"Why you were waiting for me to call you?" A playful grin on his features, I stop in my tracks and turn around looking at him in disbelief, is this what he thought of me? who am I kidding this is all I'm ever gonna be for him. Just for pleasure. He can disappear for as long as he wants and expects me to wait for him.

"Not at all..I could care less about you" I say avoiding his eyes walking slowly back to my room until suddenly I'm turned face to face with him "stop avoiding me!" He harshly tells me, his eyes stare into mine and I feel my body give up on me and surrender to his touch.

His gaze was strong and the more he stared at me, his eyes softened"... you were crying weren't you baby?" He asks, His voice was so soft and quiet I felt my heart ignite with life agai, the way he was holding my face between his hands now tracing my cheeks with his thumbs soothingly.

"N-No I wasn't-"  I groggily reply only for him to sigh "you don't have to lie to m-"

"Why are you here?" I ask cutting him off, pushing him away harder this time. I saw the way his face fell "you don't want me here?" He asks "you left her to see me?" He swoalled and bite his lip "yes" he answers in heart beat "..I told her I forgot my text book at taehyung's...and I just...I just wanted to see you" I look at his eyes sparkle for some reason he had this look on his face that just screamed at me to take him in my arms.

I used all my power to resist that urge and I stepped back, I feel tears start in my eyes again "Jungkook..." I whimpered

My heart aches because I know what I was going to say but my heart wasn't in it "we have to stop this" I cried

His eyes went wide and his mouth opened with shock and disbelief "_____ you can't do this...not now-please just listen to me-" he walks forward,his arms reach for mine I walk away from him pushing him away from me "we can't anymore...my heart can't take it!" I shouted tears fall endlessly, his gaze was too strong for me so I look away

"What are you saying _____?!" He shouted angrily "why push me away now? Huh?" He cried "tell me why are you doing this to us!" My back hits the wall behind me his hands come up on each side Trapping me.

I feel the emotions bottle up and boil inside me until they spill and I'm left feeling numb I met his eyes and the words I said next shocked him and myself..

"I love you!" I cried "Jungkook I love you!" I pause "but I can't do this anymore!" I tell him wiping my tears as more fall "please understand- I can't bear it I just-"

His lips closed on mine shutting me up.

The kiss was deep not his needy lustful kisses this was different...he kissed me passionately.

"Let me change your mind- I know I can" he pulled away his forehead touching mine "please baby..you can't do this..you can't do this to me!" I felt his tears drip down on my cheeks, seeing him like this broke my heart completely I let out a cry "but Jungkook it's wrong.." I whisper "she's sound asleep in your bed and you're...here with me" I tell him "this is not fair to her...this isn't fair to me! you have no idea of the pain I'm going through..." I say as I place my hands ontop of his hands that were holding my cheeks he had his eyes closed his breathing is uneven and shaky.

"Do you think I'm not suffering too?" He says his eyes bore into mine and I see the pain I feel swim in his eyes too "do you think this isn't hurting me?" He whispered

I shake my head "then break up with her!" I say loudly, to get it through his thick head.

"I can't!" He shouts "I just can't bring myself to!" He looks away from me as I taste my tears and stare at him heartbroken.

I cry "but you can bring yourself to see me in tears begging you to stay away when I want you?" I laugh "do I mean anything to you at all? do you even care about me?" I yell "do you even love me?" I whimpered, my chest heaving up and down.

"Yes I do _____!" He yells back. We're facing each other "stop I beg of you!" he cried tugging on his hair "seeing you cry because of me hurts like hell!" he says backing me up against the wall "good!" I reply my eyes sharply stare into his making his eyebrows raise "you drive me insane _____" he tells me placing his hands beside each side of my head "why can't I stop thinking of you! You! And the way you talk! your body! your scent! Anywhere I go all I think of is you!" He punched a hole in the wall right next to my face "so don't you dare and say that you don't matter to me..you consume me whole and I can't stay away" he pulls me closer his hands on my hips "let me love you _____..." he whispers.

"Let me take care of you stop being so stubborn angel and let me...please _____" he whispers his eyes held so much lust behind I felt his bulge against my inner thigh he leaves trail of kisses on my neck, I whimper and push him away with the little force left in me he stares at me angry.

I swallow the lump in my throat when he walks towards me again "you're horny and that's the only reason you're here" I state he stops dead in his tracks his face inches away from mine "you're only here for pleasure nothing else" I continue "at first it was an honest mistake but then it turned into a habit then I thought you loved me because why would you keep coming back?" I snorted tears pool in my eyes but I don't let them fall.

He wasn't worth it anymore "Jungkook I'm nothing but a game to you" I whisper "and I want out" I turn away from him his grip on my wrist stops me from walking away and he turns me to face him "tell me what I can do to prove you wrong!" His eyes pierce through mine he licks his lips "tell me what to do!" He says louder

I pull my hand out of his and stare into him intensely "I told you what to do" I swallow "because we can't keep doing this I'm done" I tell him walking to my room and I shut the door behind me.

He stood still even after the door had been shut, he was speechless.

Anger took over him he wanted to break your door open and have his way with you but your message was loud and clear so he turned away and closed the apartment door shut after him not wanting to argue with you anymore.

________

A/N: Hey I feel really stumped with this imagine so I need your opinion please how should I carry this on? I'm sorry for any mistakes and for the short part your opinion on this matters so please help me out here!

[letarasstuff]

What makes you beautiful

Author’s note: So yeah, this is my first fanfiction here on tumblr. I hope you enjoy it :)

Summary: Lea is an intern at the Jeffersonian. She meets Finn Abernathy and makes friends with him really fast. But what happens, when she realizes, how wrong she is treated by her boyfriend?

Warnings: Abusive boyfriend, so don’t read it, when you are sensitive to this subject. Language, i think? And bad grammar, English isn’t my first language, so please tell me any errors in it!

3211 words, I am sorry

As a kid, whose parents often fought before they got a divorce, you learn to be scared of seeing other people argue or having an argument yourself.

Now I am a teenager working as an intern, or squintern as Booth likes to call us, at the Jeffersonian. I visit my mother every two weeks for a weekend in Maryland.

So being someone, who despises fighting, your worst ‘enemy’ are relationships. Like, when your partner does things, leaving their socks and underwear all over the house for example, you tell them to stop that in a gentle way to avoid any confrontation.

Maybe you are lucky and your significant other stops leaving their crap everywhere. I wasn't that lucky. My boyfriend screamed at me, saying I only want to change him and that I was invading his private space. From now on every time I ask him to do something nicely, he lashes out on my.

Sometimes, when he is angry or pissed already, Leo slaps or kicks me. I know, it sounds stupid to not break up with him, but I love him and he loves me. We are a good team. I do the chores as soon I get home from school or the Jeffersonian and he teaches me to be the best version of myself.

After a rather exhausting day at school, I am called by Dr Brennan to assist her on a case. It’s an investigation from the FBI. The victim was found in a burnt down warehouse. Now they need us to confirm or to deny, if it is a murder or not in order to do further searches.

After sliding my badge down the security check I go on the platform. I’m greeted by Angela immediately. “Hey Sweetie. Nice to see you. I hope you are still in school”, says she and gives me a hug. Laughing I respond: “No, I didn’t drop out since the last time we saw each other, that was like three days ago?”

Then I put on some latex gloves and bid a “Hello Dr Brennan” to my mentor.

But there is also someone I don’t know yet. “Hello Miss Smith. I’m glad you could make it. This is Mr Finn Abernathy, another intern. I need both of your opinions on this case. The corpse is burnt down to the bone and any evidence is most certainly destroyed. I am not sure if we can find anything at all.”

Then Dr B turns to the guy with the baseball cap, which has the Jeffersonian logo on it, and introduces me: “This is Lea Smith. Although she is still in school and only 17 years old, she has a magnificent knowledge on anthropology.” With a kind smile Finn sticks his hand out for me and speaks: “Good day, Miss Smith. It’s really a pleasure to meet you.”

Well the boy got quite a nice accent. “Why thank you. I really look forward to work with you, Mr Abernathy. Also please call me Lea. I’m barely 17 years old and it's making me feel like I'm at least 30.” Before he has the chance to answer our mentor interferes. After all we got a case to solve!

After many hours of running tests and examining bones, Dr Brennan sent me home. Thankful I say goodbye to everyone just wanting to get finally home.

“How do you get home?” asks Finn concerned. “I take the next bus. We are in Washington DC. Here comes the bus to my neighborhood every 20 minutes in the night”, I answer. Shaking his head he begins to peel himself out of the blue jacket. “There is no way I let you go all by yourself. We are in Washington DC. A young good looking lady like you are as safe as my money in 2009. I drive you home.”

After a while sitting in uncomfortable silence Finn speaks up: “So you are still going to school? Isn’t it a bit too stressful? I mean, Dr B has some tough standards. But at the same time your grates aren’t allowed to drop, are they?”

Looking down to my fidgeting fingers in my lap I answer: “Well a part-time job as a waitress would be much easier. But I need a place, where I have to use my knowledge and mind. It’s like a big puzzle you have to solve. Everywhere are pieces, you just have to find them. Also school is quite easy for me. My biggest problem actually is time. Now it’s 2 a.m. and I have to finish an essay for English in seven hours. So sleep is a sweet thing I have to treasure like a pirate a golden coin, Mr Abernathy.” “That was well said”, he smiles, ”And please call me Finn. It feels off for me to be called Mr by someone, who just told me to stop calling them Miss.”

Now, that the ice is broken, we talk about everything and nothing actually. 20 minutes later we are at my apartment complex. While getting my seat belt off, I turn to my new coworker: “Well thank you for driving me out here. You really didn’t have to do this.” He just waves it off: “I insist. It was really a pleasure talking to you. So go and finish that essay. It’s going to be as amazing as you. And please go to bed as soon as possible. We all need a good

sleep, even you. Sleep tight!” After an awkward hug like thing I step out of the car and open the door to go to my apartment. Before I close the door I wave Finn goodbye.

With a huge smile plastered on my face I open the door to my sweet home. It’s a cozy little apartment I share with my boyfriend. After my parent’s divorce I moved in here with my dad, while my mom went to her new girlfriend in Maryland. When I was 16 my dad wanted us to move back to Germany. He and mom originally are from there. But I wasn’t too pleased with his decision. I had a job as an intern for THE Dr Brennan, a nice school, a few friends and my boyfriend here in the US. In the end he moved out and my boyfriend in. So I kinda life on my own, the big dream of every teenage girl.

Trying to avoid any loud noises I tiptoe in the kitchen. After closing the door silently, I turn on the light. Then I see Leo, my beloved boyfriend, sitting at the table with a cup of coffee. He looks beyond pissed.

“Where were you for fucks sake?!” he asks. Every syllable is pure anger and hatred. That will not end good for me.

“i-i-i was at the lab. Th-they n-needed me for a c-case.” My whole body is shaking in fear. While getting up Leo nearly screams: “And what were you thinking, when you didn’t say something about that to me? I was worried sick!”

Suddenly he pushes me. I fall on the floor, my head banging against the table leg. Leo grabs my hair, throwing my head up violently. I try not to cry.

“I-I am s-sor-sorry”, I sob. But the man just snorts: “I don’t believe that. You know, I don’t want to punish you. But if you wanna be the best version of yourself you have to learn from your mistakes.” With that he slaps my the face and let go of my hair. Forcefully I meet the cold white tiles of the kitchen floor. Then my boyfriend goes away. I hear his footsteps in the hallway and a door opening and closing. He is in the bedroom now.

A tear slips from my eyes finding its way my cheek down. My head is pounding. A few minutes later I get up carefully. Everything spins for a few seconds, but I regain my composure and get my backpack from the hallway. With a massive headache and a hurting heart I finish this essay.

It’s needless to say, that I didn’t get much sleep last night. When my homework was finally done, I had to think about the things I did wrong. Leo’s punishment has to be a lesson for me, therefore I have to analyze my behavior and do it better next time.

While sitting alone in the cafeteria during lunchtime eating an apple, my phone rings: “Smith” “Hello Miss Smith. It’s Dr Brennan. We have a new lead on the victim’s identity. Please come to the Jeffersonian as soon as possible.” Oh well, seems like my next free afternoon isn’t going to be today.

After the conversation with my kind of boss ended, I call Leo. “Hey Sweetheart”, he greets me.

I love this boy so much. “Hey Baby”, I answer breathlessly, “I just wanted to let you know, that I have to go to work right after school again today.” Anxiously I wait for his opinion. “Okay, Sweetheart. But make sure you are home by 10.” Happily I thank him.

A few awfully long periods later I finally am able to leave the hell called school. Not much later I arrive at the Jeffersonian.

“There you are”, Dr Brennan says when I get on the platform. “I’m sorry, but I had a quiz in sixth period.” Then we continue our destiny.

Yes, working with dead bodies is a destiny in my opinion. You have to be born to be able to do this. You must be prepared for anything mentally.

“Hey, I’m sorry I’m late. My granny needed help with her computer, stating she deleted the internet. It’s a lot more difficult to calm down an 80 year old woman than a bag full of puppies”, explains Finn himself.

Dr B nods: “It’s okay, Mr Abernathy. Family is more important than anything else. Please watch it that this doesn’t get to be a routine. You aren’t getting paid for nothing.” Finn takes this advice with gratitude.

“Hey Lea. How went the essay?” he asks me while putting latex gloves on. With a genuine smile I answer: “Thank you for asking. My teacher was very pleased with the presentation of the main problems from George Orwell’s 1984.” My coworker responds with a: “I’m happy to hear that.”

Suddenly I feel like I’ve been struck with a lighting. “I have an idea!” And then I’m on my way off of the platform to Hodgins’ lab.

“Hey Little One! Long time no see, he?” he greets me. I say: “Hello Bug Man! Can you do me a favor?”

Half an hour later Brennan and Booth are out to get the suspect. While waiting for news I sit in the lounge doing my homework. You gotta take every chance you get to do them.

“Oh, what’s that?” Startled by a voice I turn around. “Oh, it’s just you, Finn. Sorry, I’m a very jumpy person”, I explain myself after being reassured, that this voice is from someone, who isn’t going to hurt me. Then I look at what I wrote.

“Oh, that’s just for biology. It’s not that difficult, just something with osmosis and so.” “That’s not what I meant. It makes no sense to me. It isn’t English, is it?” he asks interested.

Then I know Finn is talking about: “Ah, it’s some good old German. I was born in Boston though. My parents moved to the US like 25 years ago. So I still learned their mother tongue. It’s quite important to them that I don’t forget their origin. And now I’m writing this paper in German at first for my mother. Her vocabulary isn’t good enough in specific areas, her knowledge on the other hand is very impressive. So I let her read it and then translate the whole thing in English, her notes indeed.”

The young man has a look of astonishment on his face. “Wow. That’s so cool. Maybe you can teach me some German and something about the culture over there. I can pay you back in showing how to speak with the coolest southern accent the world has ever witnessed!” “Well, hack my legs off and call my shorty. We have a deal!”

Weeks go by and Finn and I become great friends. We tell each other almost everything. He even visits me in school or waits for me so we can do something afterwards. Leo never does something like this with me.

We know each other like the back of our hands. There is one thing I don’t tell Finn though: What happens in my apartment.

Slowly but surely I realize that everything, that is going on in there, is wrong. When my now best friend told me about his past, especially his stepfather, I began to think.

Finn shows me on so many ways, that imperfection is that, what makes you beautiful. He makes me believe I’m already enough. And when I make a mistake, it’s fine. That’s what makes all of us human.

When I finally conclude this construct of beauty, I lay awake next to Leo. I already feel the bruises forming on my body. In this night I don’t get a wink of sleep.

Now that I know the “truth”, I am embarrassed. How dumb am I? Thinking that this guy loves me and keeps hurting me to make me perfect is nuts. It is paradox.

But am I too deep in this mess to get out? Isn’t it too late now? Is this how I am going to live until I am gray and old? Do I want that?

The next few days I distance myself from everyone. I try to spend as little time as possible at the Jeffersonian by saying that I have too much school work or I am sick. Right now I am too ashamed to look anybody in the eyes there. I’m considered as a genius, but I am too stupid to figure out something so simple sooner?

It’s like the third week in a row, that I bailed out on Dr Brennan with the excuse, that I’m sick. This time it isn’t even a lie. My dear boyfriend thought I don’t give him enough attention. So he locked me out on the balcony in the middle of winter. Now I have a fever of like 39° C (102,2° F for you Americans), a massive headache and the worst cold I ever experienced in my short life in general.

Now the 20 years old man is at work, where he has to watch over the same machines on a monitor. So it’s nothing exhausting he is doing for a living. That is why I’m confused when the doorbell rings. I abandon my project for history and open the door. Before I get the chance to register who it is, I have to sneeze. “Oh well, that is a nice greeting. God shall bless you and your poor soul”, says Finn with a look of pity on his face.

“Haha, thank you, Dork. Come in or else I freeze my guts off out here.” I lead him into my apartment. Then I realize something. “May you excuse me, now the nice warmth is gone and I need a hoodie. This way goes to the kitchen. Make yourself comfortable.” And then I bolt for the bedroom.

Now see, I didn’t expect any visits from anyone. So I can go around my habitat without worrying about my bruises. When I’m out I make sure to cover them somehow.

Dressed in a Jeffersonian sweatshirt I go back into the kitchen. When my coworker sees me, he smiles: “Oh there you are. Hold on, is that mine?” With a blush on my face I scratch my neck and respond: “Maybe? I can’t help it, but it’s really comfy.” I finish with a shrug.

Laughing Finn assures me, that I am allowed to keep it. He wanted to ask Cam for a new one anyway. “But my visit actually has another reason than just checking up on you”, the young man tells me while I prepare a cup of tea for the both of us. “And the real reason may be what?” I want to know curiously. Sighing Finn explains: “You distant yourself from us. I thought it was only me, who had this feeling. But yesterday I talked about it with the whole team. Booth misses the ‘only other normal person in the lab’. Cam and Hodgins think, that something bad happened and are so close to emerge into that door to get you out of an emergency. Sweets tells us all the time, that you shut yourself out and that this means nothing good. Angela is ready to kick someone’s ass, if they hurt you. Even Dr B is in need of your comments and ideas while working. We all are worried about you. Please let us finally know what the hell is happening. Why aren’t you answering any of our phone calls? Why aren’t you showing up at the Jeffersonian? You are needed there. Without your person the whole lab is kind of unbalanced like a drunk man on his way home from a pub.” His eyes looks pleadingly into mine.

I couldn’t answer any calls, because Leo has my phone. In his pure rage of not getting enough attention, he took my phone and isn’t willing to give it back to me any time soon.

And that is when realization hits me completely.

Leo doesn’t just hurt me, he controls me. Every move I make I'm watched by him. It’s like living with a personal Big Brother.

I don’t wanna be controlled anymore. I’m sick of not being able to do what I want. I want to be in charge of myself again.

Finally I do the right thing.

I lock eyes with Finn. Without saying anything I roll up the arms of the hoodie, revealing a spectrum of colors.

While waiting for his reaction, tears start to form in my eyes and stream down my cheeks.

Gasping he looks at my injuries. From the dark bruises to the fresh wounds and the healed scars. Lightly he traces along them with his fingers, trying to not hurt me any more. I don’t move. I just show him my greatest act of trust. I trust him with my darkest secret.

Now Finn is crying too. Between sobs he hugs me and whispers into my ear: “I’m so so so sorry, Lea. I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that crazy shit immediately. Nobody deserves to be treated like this, especially you. I promise.”

And he keeps it. After this Finn takes me to the Jeffersonian, where I get an all check up. With the evidence, that is collected, Caroline builds a case against Leo.

It doesn’t matter what’s going to happen. It doesn’t matter how long Leo goes to jail, if he goes there at all. The only important thing to me now is the support I get from my colleagues – my family – who help me every step I take.

[upthehillask]

i’d love to hear your cursed child opinions!

Oh boy, well now you’ve unleashed me :D lol I don’t know if you’re interested more in what I loved or in what I’d critique, so I’ll go for both I guess? And you can read whichever you like :) But tbh you won’t hear anything new from me that you haven’t heard other fans talk about. Anyways, here are my thoughts on the actual play: [Spoiler alert I guess!]

Things I loved:

- THE MAGIC!!! The effects were EVERYTHING. The time warp, the telephone booth, the floo, the underwater, the dementors, the writings on the walls, and so much more… Really cool!!! And I loved the whole vibe and aesthetic of the play too, it felt authentic and fitting! THE SWISHY CLOAKS!! I want them!!

- The scenes I especially enjoyed were Harry’s nightmares, glimpses into his past and scenes from the books in general. I think they executed those quite well, made me really soft! Especially the scenes of little Harry in his cupboard and also him in the graveyard. Gripped my heart. Oh, I also loved that they finally showed Cedric in the end, he was so perfect!!

- Draco. Yes yes yes to dad Draco. Still bitchy, pretentious, and petty, trying so hard to play cool and tough, but a pained softie deep inside—we STAN. The relationship between him and his son I CRI EVRITIEM!!! Draco in the alternative timeline letting Scorpius do what he believes in, Draco in the real timeline hugging his son, I LIVE. And oh my god that scene where Draco walked in to Harry crying.. GOD. Yes emotions, yes vulnerability, yes bonding, yes yes yes. (Though I still can’t get over the ponytail. Would’ve been more than fine if Lucius hadn’t been portrayed with long hair lol)

- I loved Albus!! He’s a good Slytherin boy! That’s all I have to say. He’s a good friend and son who tries his best. I liked him a lot, more so now after watching the play. He really did remind me of Harry in a lot of ways. (Also, unpopular opinion, but I always loved Albus Severus’ name and I always will, fight me.)

- And just all the dad-son relationships, parenthood themes, friendship between the boys, related conflicts… Loved all of them. Touching, inspiring, couldn’t get enough!

- McGonagall was fcking ON POINT. Fcking QUEEN. Get it girl. Show em how to understand and respect children 👏👏👏

- I really loved Snape too! It was nice to finally see him being his self that only Dumbledore got to see in the books. I loved his demeanor too. I know actors change, but the one I saw portrayed Snape in a way that felt more canon. As much as I love Alan Rickman, he was a bit too graceful and sophisticated for canon Snape. In the play, however, Snape was kind of more rough, more rash, less pulled together in a way that he spoke and moved. It’s subtle but I lived for that. Also he was finally short. Yes.

- I feel like I have to mention Harry too. I actually quite liked him, so I’m gonna put him under this list as well. Yeah, that one scene where he threatened McGonagall into strict surveillance of his son is a bit much, errr 😅😅😅 But overall, I like the idea of him struggling as a father, making mistakes and learning from them. He’s a good egg.

- Ron and Hermione, my babies!! I had issues with Ron’s characterization, but I did mostly enjoy the portrayal of their relationship. I liked that their roles within the play were mostly to be together or to find their ways to each other. Since so many fans are against their ship, I was really excited to see them. And I just loved Hermione in general. They got her characterization almost on-point too, I think. I just love her 🥰

- In general, I enjoyed a lot of the dialogue. I liked all those strong, emotional one-liners that make you gasp. Harry saying things, Albus saying things, Scorpius, Draco, Ginny, others… There were good examples of lines they’d say that perfectly articulated everything that they embodied or felt or were dealing with. Well done there.

Okayyy I’m sure there’s more I could think of, definitely, but I’ll stop here since this is already a lot 😁

Things I questioned:

- So the one single biggest thing that I am the most critical of has to do with the plot itself, and it’s about Cedric turning into a Death Eater. I’m sorry but I just can’t. I could write a whole essay on how this makes no canonical sense (and I probably will if you ask me lmaoo), but to sum it up, Cedric eventually turning bitter and evil because he was publicly humiliated directly contradicts his canon character development. Cedric’s humility, kindness, and fairness are the core qualities around which Cedric’s personality was developed in the books. He almost explicitly places popularity, glory, and reputation second, and that’s critical, because if failure and humiliation were to affect him so drastically, his primary core values needed to be broken down and changed beforehand, but they never weren’t. So presenting the Triwizard incident as the turning point for him does not make any sense, and as a result the rest of the narrative falls apart. This is a plot hole and hasty writing.

- Yeah, Bellatrix having a child is still kinda weird 🙃���� I just hate that because in the books Bellatrix played the archetype of this anti-mother, the antithesis of motherhood and motherly love. I feel like having her voluntarily bring a child into this world destroys that symbolism. It makes me unsatisfied.

- I had some issues with the very beginning and the whole “montage” of events leading up to the fourth year. I found it overwhelming and disorienting, even though I’ve already read the script and knew what’s going on. Still, I felt like I was hit by a train, watching all the fast-paced scenes, cliché chaotic small talk going on, years going by… It felt messy for some reason. I feel like I need to watch it again in order to fully catch up and process everything I saw, and that’s not a good sign. But I didn’t hate it, I just wish we were more eased into the story.

- Scorpius. Now listen. When I read the script, Scorpius was my favorite character. I LOVED him, this awkward nerd who loves his dad and best friend with all his heart. The way I grew to imagine him was quite not how he was portrayed in the play. I know the dialogue and everything’s all the same, but idk, Scorpius in the play was way more hyper, bolder than I pictured, and worst of all, he was going out of his way to be this wannabe player. He seemed so all over the place, even acting a bit arrogant sometimes, celebrating moments of over-confidence, chasing after girls, trying to be everything BUT himself. But that honestly might just be my takeaway alone. There’s nothing actually wrong with his character, I just found myself slightly disappointed with him in the play specifically. I wish I could see the play again to actually analyze things more thoroughly to explain why I feel this way, but I can’t. I still like Scorpius, but a different version of him. (tho damn did I love those skinny pants on him lmao 👌👌)

- Moaning Myrtle. Like, I laughed, it was funny, but it just wasn’t very tasteful lol and I was left feeling a bit uncomfortable from the idea of this young murdered girl writhing and thirsting over literally everyone. The play really blew that out of proportion and idk it’s kinda awkward when I think about it 😅 And in general, there was just so much thirsting… with Rose, Polly Chapman, Delphi… Not to mention Albus kissing his AUNT… Like damn chill JK please 😂 Weird cliches and teenage hormones aren’t the only source of comedy okay?? 😂😂😂 Also, speaking of Myrtle, I kinda wish there was something mentioned about Draco having had been friends with her in sixth year. Idk it would’ve been nice to see that relationship somehow reminisced since we didn’t really get to see it :) 

- Craig Bowker Jr... If he was supposed to be a parallel to Cedric, both being the spare, why did he get literally zero attention?? We don’t really know who he is, we don’t see anyone hurting because of his death, he’s killed with such apathy. We don’t even see his parent grieving, like we saw Amos (who also happen to be an integral part to the plot of CC!). The whole parallel is so incomplete. Poor Craig and his unsymbolic death..

- Ok I am obviously elaborating way too much so let me just quickly summarize the rest of things I don’t actually hate but might wanna rant about: RON IS NOT A JOKSTER—GEORGE IS. RON IS A FIGHTER. HE IS ALSO HARRY’S BEST FRIEND, NOT HERMIONE, BUT HE WAS MADE USELESS AND UNNEEDED, WHICH IS HIS ACTUAL WORST FEAR, SO WHO THE FUCK DARED. ROSE IS MORE THAN A BITCHY ROMANTIC INTEREST AND A BAD FRIEND. WHERE THE HELL IS HUGO. GINNY’S EVEN COOLER THAN SHE WAS PORTRAYED, I PROMISE. THE SURPRISE SECOND TIME TURNER ERRRR LOUSY PLOT DEVICE I’M SORRY. LACKLUSTER PLOT IN GENERAL, THE ONLY ACTUAL TWIST IS DELPHI’S REVEAL—NOT ENOUGH, JKR KNOWS BETTER THAN THIS, THE BOOKS WERE FULL OF TWISTS AND TURNS (but that’s kinda okay with me because the relationships between characters in CC really made the whole story worth it).

Alright enough :’D I’m not actually upset, just exaggerating haha Because overall, I liked the play. I wanna see it again. And I wanna analyze it more, too. I’m so excited I finally got to watch it. It’s far from flawless, but I’m still happy with it overall and want to approach it positively! Sure, I’ll rant when it’s ranting time, but I do love it (:

[blapisblogs]

Corey Taylor (yes, he’s still here) has so little to do in this “review”- er, is so bored of this “review”- uh, I mean, is so bored with watching The Wall that he starts drifting off. Doug somehow knows this, stares at him through the TV, and says “Is there anybody who cares”, leading into the next song parody. Part-way into the song Tamara Chambers comes back in as the maid, Malcolm Ray as a body guard (still dressed as one of the “kids” only now he’s wearing glasses), and... Brad Jones (aka The Cinema Snob) as the manager (I guess), all of whom try to wake up Corey Taylor by overacting like hell.

For those who don’t know, most people ended up leaving Channel Awesome with three exceptions: Doug Walker (of course), Larry Bundy Junior (who only stayed for laughs), and Brad Jones, so I’m not that surprised the latter has turned up here. I’m ashamed to say that I used to watch some of Brad’s content, but since the whole Not So Awesome document incident happened, he’s said some pretty terrible things about the whole situation (he’s the one who infamously said “Logan Paul filmed a dead body and he still has a career” during an interview talking about the Change the Channel movement), so I’ve since stopped watching him as well. That said, at least he’s slightly better than Doug is at imitating the film counterpart he’s standing in for (in this case Pink’s manager, played by the late Bob Hoskins), but that’s hardly saying much when Doug’s not even trying.

While the first line spoofs “Is There Anybody Out There?”, the actual song that gets parodied next is “Comfortably Numb”, a song where Pink is being medicated by a doctor in order to perform for his next show. I don’t have much else to say about what happens during this parody, it’s really uninteresting, which is exactly what Doug is saying about these parts of the film. The thing is, those “slow, mopey” songs serve a purpose to the plot: they’re about how Pink feels as he’s gradually isolating himself from everyone else. This parody? It’s a whole song calling the other ones slow and boring, and takes yet another jab at Roger Waters. This is, what, the third or fourth parody song in a row where he’s insulted him now? We got it the first time, Doug. There are so many other things in this album and film that could be discussed here: how the gradual abuse affects Pink’s psyche and causes him to further spiral into depression, the dangers of what Pink is doing to himself (and unintentionally others), the directions they took for this film that differ from the album, anything. Yes, Waters’s ego might be hard to ignore while knowing the backstory, but you could at least try to talk about literally anything else regarding the film. Or, if you wanna talk about Roger Waters’s ego behind this project so badly, Doug, then actually talk about it. Talk about the spitting incident that led to this, talk about how Waters had the most creative control on this project while the other three members had almost no say in it, talk about the disagreements he had with director Alan Parker while making this film, talk about how this led to Waters leaving the band and later tried to sue them for still calling themselves Pink Floyd afterwards (which he of course lost). Doug does literally none of this, which makes it feel like he either assumes everyone knows this already or he himself doesn’t know all of it due to not doing any research into it (and let’s just say that I wouldn’t be surprised if the latter turned out to be true). I’m sorry I keep bringing up this one thing, but that’s because that’s what Doug keeps doing in this “review”; he’s a broken record.

The song eventually ends when Brad Jones tells Corey Taylor to “sober up or have an existential conflict”. I didn’t even know he was supposed to be drunk in this “review”, but I guess that would explain a lot. Also, I guess this means that Doug Walker doesn’t find Pink’s internal conflict (which is, you know, the whole point of the album and film) to be interesting, which at this point is unsurprising but still frustratingly disappointing. It’s also sad considering that Doug is a critic who can’t be bothered to consider internal conflict as valid as existential conflict or think that Pink’s internal conflict is causing some of his existential conflict. For someone who goes on about character depth and development in other things, Doug sure avoids talking about any of that for this in favor of continually shitting on it for the sake of poorly-thought-out jokes.

Anyway, it then goes to the in-video commercial break. I’m not even half-way through yet.

Fuck.

[Lyrics (and snark) below the cut]

Is there anybody who cares?

Wake up (wake up, wake up) Are you still awake in that chair? Just keep listening to me I know you’re kinda bored

[Five lines and every single one leaves good openings for jokes at its expense. At least the parodies before this weren’t this easy to make jokes about, this is just... It’s too much to not use it as an excuse to make fun of it, yet also too easy. Fuck you?]

Yeah sure (yeah sure, yeah sure) It’s a lot of slow songs now It’s hard to keep on track With mellow songs back-to-back

[Again, this means that you somehow consider “What Shall We Do Now” (warning: this one has NSFW and unsettling imagery depicting sex, violence, blood, drugs, Nazis, death, and other things, and also gets really loud), “Young Lust”, “One of my Turns”, and “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 3)” to be “mellow”, which they aren’t really, at least not compared to the others. I can’t even think of how you could say that about “Young Lust”, unless... Doug, please don’t tell me that you think “Empty Spaces” and “Young Lust” are the same song, because I cannot comprehend how you could know that “The Happiest Days of Our Lives” and “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)” are separate songs but not know that those two are not one and the same.]

(Sorry, I can’t tell what these next couple of lines are saying because this is the part where Brad, Tamara and Malcolm come in and the former starts talking over the song. Given how crappy these lyrics are, maybe that’s for the best.)

You need to watch this movie first Just a half-hour more Come on, you’ve gotten through worse

[I’ve been telling myself that since roughly the ten minute mark of this video, and yet every time I come back here to type more about it I keep feeling the urge to close the tab for it.]

You can’t be bored while we are singing

[Wait, “we”? Are you making fun of all of the members of Pink Floyd now instead of just Roger Waters? What did David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Richard Wright do to you, asshole? I thought you were taking these potshots at Waters because of the effect this album ended up having on the other band members even after he left, now it sounds like you’ve got some personal beef with Pink Floyd in general, which gets really screwy given something you end up saying later.]

Unless you don’t wanna be seen as deep

[Doug, you can’t be bothered to even analyze or even properly talk about the surface-level symbolism that’s right there in front of you in this film; you don’t get to lecture me on what’s deep or not.]

Your attention constantly may fade Your eyes move, but do you care what we’re saying?

[You might as well have called this “Tempting Fate: The Song” with all these lyrics ripe to make fun of.]

When I was a child I remember being invested Like hearing “The Dark Side of the Moon”

[You can barely comprehend the things that are going on in “The Wall”, don’t drag “Dark Side of the Moon” into this.]

Now I’ve grown, this section starts to drag Like a long neck, I just don’t understand Is this now how I am? I have become comfortably dumb

[As many others have already pointed out, that is literally the easiest joke you could’ve gone with for that line. It’s like turning “Kingdom Hearts” into “Kingdom Farts”; a literal child could’ve come up with that joke.]

Okay (okay, okay) Just get through the damn flick You want to seem cool But this ain’t getting your kicks Can you listen? (Listen, listen) Later there will be a quiz

[You are the last person who should be giving quizzes about this film or album, Doug.]

Somebody has to feel the same When I become so lame

[“Lame”? I could be wrong, but last I checked Waters is doing just fine. Or are you talking about the other members of Pink Floyd? Because from what I’ve heard Gilmour isn’t currently doing so well mentally, and if you’re making fun of that, then... wow, fuck you.]

There is only so long I can go With hearing a millionaire say that things blow It’s like I’ve been asleep for days The film plays, but I can’t take the complaining

[You know, you keep saying that, but at least people can relate to some of the things that were brought up in the songs here. Losing a loved one in a tragic and violent way at a young age? Having an overbearing, emotionally abusive parent? An oppressive and unfair school system? An unfaithful partner? As unfortunate as it is, those are all things some people out there can relate to. At least they’re all not petty, shallow insults about things Waters doesn’t personally like, Doug.]

Like telling a child “It’s just how everything is” Just fighting to open my eyes The epic feels I had are gone I don’t know what is going on

[Neither do the people who watched this and know nothing about the film or album, from what I could tell: you’ve done nothing to help them understand what’s actually happening given how much context you’ve left out. All you’ve done is go “Roger Waters has a big ego, Roger Waters has a big ego, people who complain about school are special snowflakes, something something World War 2, animation, slow mopey songs, did I mention Roger Waters has a big ego?”]

Now the child is gone And I’ve moved on I wish those days weren’t just a phase

[Since you said there was a quiz later, Doug, I’m gonna have to retaliate and ask you to submit an essay to me explaining why you thought it was necessary to put this song into your already lengthy “review”. No, you are not allowed to use the phrase “Fuck Roger Waters and his ego” or words to that effect; that alone is not a decent argument.]

[seductresses-temple]

Hello! 😍 i have 3 words for you, hope it helps with your writing! -library, ghosts, oranges. I was thinking maybe Wolfstar and about 700words? Wish you a lot of inspiration! ❤❤❤

Aaaaah so it too me so long to get to this but I honestly love how it came out? 

First Kiss

Pairing: Wolfstar

Rating: Teen 

“If Madam Pince catches you with that orange, I’ll be forced to pretend I don’t know you. You aren’t supposed to take food from the Great Hall, Padfoot,” Remus murmured, the smell of orange peel becoming more pungent with every scrape of Sirius’ fingernails against the tough rind.

“Moony,” Sirius gasp, clutching at his chest dramatically like an old pure blooded bitty clutching her pearls “you wound me! Here I was, thinking I was ever so important to you.” Sirius grinned, popping a segment of orange in his mouth, munching around a wolfish grin.

Remus rolled his eyes. Leave it to Padfoot to turn every waking moment into a moment on the main stage, the theatrical arse. He’s a beautiful theatrical arse, though. Remus shook his head, trying to stuff the thought down or shake it out or something, anything really. He also tried to pretend as if he hadn’t noticed the droplets of juice dribbling down Sirius’ chin. He shook his head again, trying to focus on the half finished Transfiguration essay sprawled out in front of him. He hated the way he’d been thinking about Sirius as of late. Words like beautiful and sexy and amazing drifting in and out of his mind among potions assignments and the Maurader’s latest prank. The more he tried not to think of it the more attractive Sirius became but the whole idea was preposterous. This was Sirius for shite’s sake. Remus could deal with the thought, or possibility, or the whatever of being gay. He spent most of his time studying or sleeping or���you know…becoming a fur-covered freak every full moon. Analyzing his sexuality wasn’t particularly on the top of his priority list most days. But this was Sirius. Padfoot. He could want to snog as many pretty dark haired boys as he pleased but he could not have feelings for Sirius. His life was decidedly complicated and difficult enough.

“You reckon ghosts can fuck?”

“What?” Remus blinked.Then blinked again…and then for good measure he blinked a few more times.

“Ghosts? Little spectral things that wander the halls of our hoggy warty Hogwarts? You reckon they fuck? I mean, they do everything else don’t they? Gossip and have death day parties and well, they can possess people, yeah? You think the Bloody Baron ever just hops in someone’s skin so he can jump someone’s bones?”

Oh Merlin’s left saggy ball….only Padfoot. Remus couldn’t help it. He honestly couldn’t. He started to laugh, the sound bubbling up from somewhere deep in his gut he was laughing so hard he felt like he’d forgotten how to breathe. He wasn’t sure when Sirius had joined him but before he knew it they were both doubled over, hanging off of each other trying to breathe between fits of laughter.

“Black, Lupin! Ten points from Gryffindor!” Madam Pince had marched over to the table and nearly scared the skin off both of them. She towered over them, arms crossed as they clung hopelessly to each other, gasping, and wiping tears from their faces.

“And Mister Black, if I catch you in my library with food again it’ll be detention with Filch for you. Do I make myself clear? Now, it’s nearly curfew, off to bed with both of you.” They watched her march away, both of them still gasping and clearing their throats trying to come down from such a delirious high. They were still chuckling quietly as they left the library, walking side by side back up to Gryffindor tower.

“’Can ghosts fuck?’ Honestly, Pads, where do you come up with these things?” Remus chuckled, bumping his shoulders into Sirius’.

“Well, pretty boys tend to make me say stupid things,” Sirius threw back his wild head of hair, his barking laugh echoing through the halls which suddenly felt all too quiet for Remus’ comfort. He must have heard him wrong. He had to have heard him wrong.

“Moony,” Sirius stopped walking, tugging at the hem of Remus’ sweater and Remus hated the way he clutched his books to his chest like Frankie Fucking First Year. His heart hammered in his chest, the sound of it beating against his eardrums.

“Moony?”

Remus blinked…then blinked again, but before he could say a word, he was being pulled into a dark alcove, Sirius’ lips crashing into his and drowning out every screaming thought in his mind about how he wasn’t good enough. He moaned softly, his books clattering to the floor as he tangled his fingers in Sirius’ hair, licking the taste of oranges off Sirius’ bottom lip before plunging his tongue into his mouth and relishing in the way Sirius moaned into the kiss, pressing closer to him until his back dug into the rough stone of the wall. Every second of Sirius’ hands on his waist and tongue in his mouth made him forget every ache in his bones, every sting in his scar, every whisper of unworthiness and self doubt.

“And they call Prongs the oblivious one,” Sirius teased, pulling back to look at him with that wolfish grin practically plastered to his face.

Remus blinked, the moment washing over him like the warmth of a blanket on a cold, rainy day. He smiled slowly, shoving Sirius out of the alcove and picking up his books.

“You’re impossible, Pads.”

[inqukoala]

If you ever feel stupid for being super awkward around other girls, here’s a compiled list of events of me being a dumbass lesbian (+ idk how friendships work): 

In 8th grade, my future ex said she didn’t like Spongebob and I ignored her for 3 days. 

On a separate occasion, that same girl kept talking to me while I was trying to analyze Romeo and Juliet in an essay, and I told her to shut up (nicely!) so I could type. 

And on another separate occasion, she came up to me in study hall, stuttering about I reminded her of Raven from Teen Titans and how she always related more to Beast Boy (I’m way too invested in media and I guess she noticed), and I glared at her in unwanted curiosity. But I said nothing instead, and so she just sat down across from me and we read our books in silence.

I used to volunteer at my library for community service during high school. I was dusting off bookshelves when a girl a few aisles down looked at me for like .5 seconds, and my brain stopped working, and I impulsively swiped 2 book displays off the shelf. The noise echoed in the building, and we made eye contact again, and I ducked down behind the shelf even though she could still kinda see me and I stayed sitting on the floor there for 10ish minutes before I could function again. Needless to say, I stopped volunteering there.

Advance to the point of senior year, where I develop a crush on that future ex and think “there’s no way she likes me,” when she has, in fact, been flirting with me for an entire semester in addition to all the times in 8th grade as well as since she fucking transferred here. Constant compliments, gazing at me for too long to be platonic, and always wanting to talk to me, which leads us to the next bullet...

I had no idea how the hell to carry/start a conversation while under this sort of pressure, at the time. And I’d feel horrible for making her feel like she’s the only one putting any effort into our friendship (-and escalating). So I started looking up conversation starters and questions to ask people, and it worked, but I also feel like she was disappointed. But that aside! The question “what is the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?” comes on my phone screen, and immediately, w/o even realizing I’d done so, I choke out, “I’m so gay,” and she’s like, “where did that come from?” I recognize that anyone with their shit together would’ve said “you are” to the question, but I’m a dumbass and the cons outweighed the pros to me bc she was pretty much my only friend at the time, so instead, I had to come up with a bullshit excuse  (“...well, what’s-what’s more beautiful than..people.”) I have no idea how I got away with that.

We would meet up at her locker and walk to the buses together bc neither of us drove. So she says she has a surprise for me, turns to me, and I hear “do you wanna kiss?” My gay heart stopped for at least half a minute, my entire face and ears are tomato fucking red, and I actually tripped over one of my feet (caught myself, thankfully). She’s bending down to pick something up. She stands back up and we make eye contact for a brief second before I see that she’s holding a FUCKIG HERSHEY’S KISS in her proffered hand. Thank god (but also no) that her ex boyfriend showed up to talk with her, and he walked all the way to the buses with us. My soul was leaving my body the whole walk. She didn’t understand my reaction until the buses were leaving. The next morning, she apologized again for it and offered me another Hershey’s.

I skipped class for the first time, and we sat in the woods by the school. She asked if she could kiss me. I said, never having kissed anyone before, said “you can try.” No clue why I said that, I feel so stupid for it. But she did kiss me, and it was like time stopped (which also sounds stupid, but it’s true). By the end of our excursion, we were officially dating, but when we went inside for our next classes, I wasn’t sure if she wanted us to be out or how she felt about pda. The dumbest thing I’ve ever done: we going to part ways, she was going to give me a hug, but I reacted before I knew it - “fist bump?” She did, in fact, fist bump me, smiling too, but she would not let me live that down.

That’s about as much as I’ve got. I’d probably have more bc I’m honestly such a dumbass, but I haven’t really been into anyone since the breakup. Anyway, I hope this made some people’s day better

[acromantulla]

Young!Sirius Black x Reader: Homemade Family

Requested by: Anonymous

Warnings: emotional abuse tw, swearing tw, mild panic attack? tw, lots of all caps and yelling tw

Spring at Hogwarts brought mixed emotions. Summer was so close, but exam prep and testing whittled students to the bone. The weather became cheerier, and thus the drive to go outside and abandon Potions essays only grew. The seventh years were ripping their hair out trying to fight their procrastination and make it to the finale of their time at the school.

In the Great Hall, a very tired Remus flipped absent mindedly through a Herbology book, trying to soak in as much knowledge as he could before the final exam. Peter was in stitches, cursing under his breath for not starting his studies sooner. James had fallen asleep on an open text, claiming that he would “get the information better this way, really guys, osmosis – look it up.” But off to the side, Sirius and Y/N felt a little more relaxed about their studies. Sirius threw an arm over Y/N’s shoulders while browsing the Prophet and Y/N scanned her Defense Against the Dark Arts notes.

“No studying for you, Sirius?” Peter inquired, causing Sirius’s dark bangs to swing as he glanced up.

“Yeah, no. I’m not gonna stress myself out, it completely wrecks your complexion.” He said, gently patting his cheeks. Y/N snorted.

“It’s not like we have anyone at home that gives a damn.” Y/N added with a dismissive smirk.

It was no secret throughout the castle that Sirius and Y/N had been given the short end of the stick when it comes to family. Sirius’s mother was nothing short of a hag, and Y/N’s parents liked to manipulate her and toy with her emotions. Neither child had parents that were loving or supportive, and that was partially what drew them together. They both knew the struggle of raising themselves and building their own self-esteem despite everything that was pulling against them.

“Oh. Right.” Peter said, dumbly.

“I’m sorry, guys.” Remus added. And he meant it. Remus had always been the responsible figure in Y/N’s life that sincerely cared. Y/N liked to joke that she had the bad cop and the good cop for parents – James, who liked to stir the pot, and Remus, who kept it from boiling.

“It’s not your fault Remus.” Y/N said, warmly. “Sirius and I may not have been able to choose our blood relatives, but choosing you guys as family was one of the best decisions we ever made.”

Remus gave a heartfelt smirk, but the moment was soiled quickly enough. Owls and other assorted birds flocked into the Great Hall carrying the weeks’ parcels. Sirius looked up just in time to see a tawny owl spit a red envelope in Y/N’s lap.

Her face went completely white, and her bottom lip started to tremble. Remus looked from Y/N to Sirius, unsure of what fresh hell was about to relieve itself. There was no telling how this situation would go down. Sirius quietly held out his palm for Y/N’s hand, and lifted her chin with a single finger.

“We’ll open it together, love.” He said, giving her hand a squeeze.

She nodded, tears already starting to prick at the corner of her eyes. Sirius gave her a loving smile and together, they lifted the seal that held the envelope closed. Immediately, it sprang to life and assumed the form of a face, with pursed lips and a harsh expression. The voice was shrill and filled the hall at once.

“Y/F/N Y/M/N Y/L/N!” It shouted.

Y/N shrank in her chair like a shy violet. Peter stuck his fingers in his ears, looking a tad bit frightened himself.

“WE’VE RECEIVED YOUR QUARTERLY REPORT AND WE COULDN’T BE MORE DISGUSTED. YOU KNOW VERY WELL WE EXPECT ALL O’S FROM YOU, BUT WE OPEN THE PARCHMENT AND DISCOVER THAT YOU CURRENTLY HAVE AN E IN DIVINATIONS!”

Y/N’s stomach dropped. Divinations did not come naturally to her and as much as she worked her tail off, she had a little slip this quarter. Reports were by no means final and she was sure that with her extra credit she would secure the O, but there was no reasoning with her parents.

“YOUR ANCESTORS ARE ROLLING IN THEIR GRAVES RIGHT NOW, Y/N! WE DID NOT SAVE EVERY PENNY SO THAT YOU COULD FOOL AROUND INSTEAD OF GETTING TOP MARKS.”

She DID have top marks. All O’s and one E? That was the result of many hours of studying in the library and slaving away in front of a textbook.

“NEXT QUARTER, WE BETTER SEE THIS RECTIFIED, OTHERWISE YOU ARE BETTER OFF NOT COMING HOME FOR THE SUMMER. FIX IT.”

With that, the howler ripped itself into shreds and created a small flash fire, burning all evidence that the message had ever existed. Silence filled the Great Hall. Remus looked quite disturbed, and Peter was trembling slightly. Sirius was purple in the face, with pursed lips – livid from the emotional abuse that his beloved girlfriend had to experience. Y/N was as white as a sheet, and her palm was clammy, still clutching Sirius’s.

A snort alerted the Marauders and company that James had finally woken up. He furrowed his eyebrows and raised his head, a cheerio stuck to his cheek.

“I’m trying to FUCKING sleep.” He grouched. Strands of black hair stuck around his head like a nest.

“Not now mate.” Remus hushed, tapping him repeatedly on the shoulder.

James took a look around at the table, and grit his teeth, immediately shutting up. Y/N looked up from her lap and met eyes with Sirius. The hand that held hers was so gentle and caressed the back of her wrist, but his other hand was clenched in a fist. His lips were not pressed, but relaxed and his deep brown eyes met her gaze with tenderness. He said nothing, but analyzed her form for every detail. His eyebrows looked worried. He wasn’t mad anymore.

He slowly let go of her hand and watched for her reaction. The two were in a staring match. Sirius pushed himself up from the table and swung both legs over the seat he just occupied. He legged both boots onto the table, startling everyone who had been too scared to move. Now standing in full form on top of the breakfast table, he had the attention of everyone in the room.

He took his sweet time, looking around at all of the heads that just ached for him to say something. Ever the Drama King. Sirius cleared his throat loudly.

“Those sound like some BLOODY BRILLIANT grades to me!” He shouted, clapping his large hands together.

Color drained into Y/N’s face as her cheeks were flushed with pink. Sirius began to whoop, still giving a steady applause. Remus was the next one to rise.

“Hard work and determination folks!” He said, pivoting around so that the whole hall heard him. He joined in on the clapping. “You can have it too, just gotta hit those books like Y/N!”

James gave a wide grin and hopped up to join his friends.

“The ONE WOMAN MARVEL ladies and gents!” He said, holding her arm up in triumph. Y/N gave out a chuckle, waves of relief running over her. “UN-BELIEVEABLE. STUPENDOUS. MAGNIFICENT.”

Peter was now on the table too, desperate to be included.

“And if you don’t start clapping, I will personally kick each and every one of your asses.” Sirius added, with a stern expression.

Spurts of applause began to break out and Y/N was ready to sink into the floorboards with overwhelming emotion. She held her face in her hands and giggled, feeling relieved that the tension was out of the room. With a crack, the double doors opened wide and McGonagall entered the room. Most of the clapping stopped.

“Misters Potter, Black, Lupin, and Pettigrew!” She called, her eyebrows knit in frustration. “Get DOWN from the breakfast table at once!”

“Are you gonna kick her ass, mate?” James murmured out of the corner of his mouth. Sirius and Remus began to cackle.

“OFF! NOW!” She demanded, and the crew disbanded quickly. “Students, off to your classes! No more tomfoolery this morning, or detention. I mean it! Standing on the bloody tables, *sigh*.”

Sirius jumped from the table, and placed a loud kiss to Y/N’s cheek.

“That’s our cue, love.” He said, helping her up. “Off to Care of Magical Creatures. Careful not to make any misspellings in your notes or your mother will be down here ready to hang me.”

Y/N let out a partially embarrassed chuckle.

“I think she’d be more in a rush to hang me, Sirius.” She responded, giving him a soft smile.

Sirius puffed out his chest.

“She’d have to get through me, first.” He decided. Laughing, Y/N followed him down the pathway to the stables, feeling very fortunate for the little family that she had chosen. Truly, she couldn’t have found friends who were more caring or special than the Marauders, and if that wasn’t family, then what was?

[ugamyrain]

Rain Rants again with her shitty unpopular opinion. (I might be burnt at the stake) This is long.

This is a piece about SasuSaku and NaruHina. Before I start, I should clarify: I have been a fan of both since the chuunin exams and I became an semi active-lurk member on the NF since Naruto Shippuden was released. This is my point of view about the whole ordeal since the fateful 5th of november of 2014 and how I see both fandoms in general now. If you are easily offended or nitpicky, please keep in mind this is only MY opinion and perspective.

Being in the SasuSaku fandom for a really long time has been bittersweet the same way as being in the NaruHina fandom at the same time, due to all the bickering between them when they have no basis to be mad at each other. Like, both of the fandoms became a competition about who is a better woman. In other words: they fight for the stupidest shit. Back then I would’ve sighed and felt conflicted and unable to voice an opinion because both pairing fandoms took it as a personal offense. Okay I am exagerating but most of the time it felt that way. Nowadays I laugh. And I know that I will get some fans offended by what I am about to say because SasuSaku fans are still very sensitive, and NaruHina fans, well I should say some are insufferable.

Both pairings had a lot to prove back then, I understood being defensive against people who slammed the pairings, mostly the hate directed towards the girls. Calling them names, insulting them with the overused insult of all: “useless”.

I could write a 1,500 character essay about my opinion of how Hinata became the untouchable overpowered goddess of the NaruHina fandom -considering the humble begginings of the couple- and why Sakura’s opinion about her character never changed - even though she was one of the most developed secondary characters.

I will not deny that Kishimoto’s writing of Sakura was never the best. As well as the writing for Hinata - it wasn’t the most gracious. The anime didn’t help either.  But what he could not make up for explicit development he tried to compensate it by writing their personality. And I would write another 2,500 essay explaining how this was good and bad for him.

However I can say this: I will not deny that Kishimoto’s cryptic writing, specially of Sasuke’s character, did not help Sakura’s case at all for people who were just watching without analyzing the scenes and panel by panel. Hinata’s case was more direct that’s why the popularity of Naruhina rose as the hate for the pairing did as well.

I understand Kishimoto’s need to retain all the shippers to keep reading and that’s why the red herrings were placed. And believe me, every time a red herring appeared it was hell for both of the pairings. Once the red herrings dissappeared it was clear that both pairings were meant to be. Period.

For fans it didn’t stop there. Both of the fandoms wanted to prove something, what that something was? Stupidity. Sorry but that’s how I felt that whole thing was.  (Imagine being a shipper for both of the pairings at the time. Not only fighting with the antis but also fighting between the pairings because... well they were fighting to see which girl had the bigger pussy- I couldn’t say dick because duh, but it was pretty much the whole fight).

My first bump with both of the fandoms  was with Naruto the Last. For some reason -well, instigated by the antis from both couples and the greatest shipping war there was at the time. And so a grueling 6 months battle began-, no one was satisfied. Criticism of the movie started to appear, but the shipping war got the best of both fandoms. It became infected by the antis with the valid questions: Why would Naruto wait 2 years? Why isn’t  there any Sasuke in the movie if Sasuke was spammed like junk mail in the trailers? Those questions were fair and we should’ve had a conversation as to why they would do it and move on, however at this point both of the fandoms were intoxicated. I tried to voice my opinions but I was one of the few who was seeing things in a different perspective... even the ones who were rooting for both pairings became toxic.

NaruHina fans had 4 reactions:

a- Inside the fanbase people were mad because 2 years it’s a long time, not realistic at all - and well, the development was really natural in the manga and the movie made the characters seem like they never spoke to each other at all after the war.

b- The image from the outsiders made them feel that Hinata was treated like a damsel in distress and the overall cliched plot- so, basically the fandom agreed and  they started to whine a lot.

c- The movie made Naruhina rejoice about the fan service the movie provided, but this also had negative consequences.- The most recurrent essay from the ones who liked both pairings began: “I love both pairings and I am happy for Hinata but...” forcing many of them to pick sides.

d- It all worsened by the attitude NaruHina fans took: “WE have only the best. WE have the movie. WE have the fanservice. WE are the best. Hinata was the queen all along. Hinata is stronger than... Naruhina is better than... Hinata, oh, Heil Hinata.”

I didn’t like it. I had to unfollow people I have followed since the NF days and I kept people who only liked both pairings... but even then...  there was one thing that I liked less.

Because of all of the glory Naruhina was sharing the SasuSaku fandom didn’t get much fanservice. After all the fight, we deserved something, right? Because Sakura went trhough hell to get the guy, right? After all the bickering with other fandoms, right? SasuSaku deserved have more scenes in the movie because of the trailers and moreover because SasuSaku was the main couple, right? Wrong.  

I understood where people came from when they said SasuSaku is the main couple, because well, they share a lot in part 1, it was the most developed from the 2 - well, 3 couples if we count ShikaTema-, at the time, but the truth is, since both couples did not depend one from the other, a plot involving the two would’ve been too convoluted. I guess one could say that it’s not impossible since other movies do this, but it was not a movie, it was a Naruto movie. A plot with Sasuke and Sakura’s involvement would’ve overshadowed the dynamic between Naruto and Hinata like maaaany times before. Kishimoto was forced time and time again to take Sasuke out of the picture for Naruto develop his bonds outside Team 7 not only with Hinata, but she was the most obvious of this technique.

Yes, I do understand the criticism Kishimoto had for overcomplicating things and that an arc in the manga would’ve been more fitting if he wanted to complicate it but it’s obvious that his plan was to leave it open for interpretation like he did at the end of 699. That was the end he wanted and it shows.

Most of the SasuSaku fans didn’t like it and the few that remained neutral regarding the movie were being infected little by little with each negative post. Because a double date movie was more fitting for Naruto: The Last, considering how much Sasuke there was in the trailers. The attitude of NaruHina fans did not help, it only fueled them. SasuSaku fans became extremely pessimistic. This was my second bump.

4 months passed, things were still tense I distanced myself from the fandom. SasuSaku was fighting with everybody. NaruHina was fighting with everybody. Naruto Gaiden came and for some reason... it got scary.

I loved each chapter of Gaiden because of the whole context that may have pushed Kishimoto to write it the way he did. I loved Sarada, I loved SasuSaku moments and I returned to see what SasuSaku shippers were saying, what I found was my third bump.

Whining. Cursing. Dissapointed fans. Negativism. People hating on Gaiden. Unnecesary drama, some fans pointed out.  And I thought “Wait a minute, every single story is unnecesary drama. WTH are they talking about?” “Sarada is an ungreateful child. Unlikable” they chimed. And still I was thinking: “Team 7 was not likable at the beggining either”. “Sasuke was not there? Inconceivable! I hate Kishimoto because it’s impossible for Sasuke to never have seen Sarada.”

They started to pick apart every single panel, every single interaction. The whole thing was an essay by the author of the precious couple to show the ridiculousness he had to endure for 6 months after he ended his manga. With the Thank you pages flooded with nasty messages from other antis. With the online comunity trying to boicott him, disrespecting him, harrassing him, harrassing his editors through twitter, his helpers and even some calls to Shounen Jump. Gaiden was meant to be read as a mocking piece. I saw through it and I was dissapointed that some fans were not able to see that.

At the end people tried to make peace with Gaiden and Boruto the movie came. And everyone was happy with the little interactions here and there. Just kidding. SasuSaku fans started to complain about how Sakura’s body was drawn. “Too skinny, too flat, face it’s too round. She looks like a little girl.” No, nevermind her badassery and cuteness, her body was her problem. “Kishimoto draws her like a woman. SP I hate you.”

Suddenly the problem became Studio Pierrot. Yes, I understood that they fucked up a lot of things but there was one problem the Naruto anime had as a whole especially in the transition to Naruto Shippuden and Shippuuden itself: Naruto became disjointed. The Anime of Naruto is no masterpiece and part of that was not the fillers by themselves, but the fillers in which the directors didn’t give a fuck about the story and fluidity. Little by little Naruto became less a cohesive story and more a gag anime. By the time Shippuuden had its turn to be animated, many of the boring and enraging tropes they commited in part 1 filler hell, was transitioned to Shippuuden.

If comunication is key, in Naruto anime’s case, that key was lost somewhere in the parking lot. Red herrings were glorified, Sakura’s awful personality was enhanced even though we know that in the manga, Sakura had become very fond of Naruto as a friend and was acting like a real friend to him. Sakura anime was a completely different person from Sakura in the manga.

Either way, SP tried to mend something that was completely broken by that point: Sakura’s sweet girl act did not work anymore and it made her look bad and not sincere. But it’s fine, I know directors were just following orders and animators as well. I got mad but tha’s fine, at least they didn’t change anything crucial. Yes, animation was always shitty when it came to animate SasuSaku scenes, but hey, I already knew their bias. But the fandom did not let it be.

Now, with the whole Boruto generations I have found a fourth bump. Until now, Gaiden has been well animated, things that were critized in the manga are being spelled out letter by letter. We are having more explanation, more exposition, better animation, better character designs and more personality from Sakura, and still SasuSaku shippers are negative and point their finger at SP critizing every single error it has. There are a lot of moments in general in the anime that were not shown properly or at all, but in general, the fandom seemed to accept that fact because... well, it’s SP, it’s an adaptation of a manga and has always been a bad one at that. Why is the SasuSaku fandom still negative and pessimistic? I get that we have to be critical of what we consume but.. why are they so defensive all the freaking time.

Sasuke and Sakura are canon and there is no thing an anti can say or do to change that fact. Insulting Sakura’s character or whatever it’s laughable, because despite what people might say, the manga proves them wrong. Kishimoto proves them wrong. We know that. What's the point?

To me, everytime I see a complaint without a strong case like: "this panel was cut, this scene was changed, this was not in that room. Sakura is not flat.", it shows to me what a big inferiority complex the SasuSaku shippers have. Like what the hell? I get that making fun of SP is fun, but there are shippers who are actually mad at it... like, have you not seen what a mess the Naruto anime is and you are complaining about size of Sakura’s boobs or the make up she wears or lack there of? LOL.

I finally understand: The SasuSaku fans are never going to be pleased.

NaruHina shippers: I love you guys but sometimes... ugh.

Sorry for this massive ranting. If you read it all, congratulations. You win cookies.

Have a great day everybody. I was hoping mom and dad would forgive each other already... Not happening any day soon, it seems.

PS. I still love you too SasuSaku shippers but I think you need a reality check.

[autumnrory]

i think the reason unnecessary (and often untrue) criticism of taylor swift bothers me so much more than it does with other celebs i like is because it just feels so personal

there are celebs that are just as important to me, that i love just as much as taylor. other celebs who have made me happy during hard times

but the thing with taylor is how her music has been there has been there during my worst times, since middle school, when life started getting harder (even if those things back then seem so silly now, they mattered then). i first heard should’ve said no at a party in seventh grade (shoutout to that girl amanda that i never talk to anymore, she was a gr8 friend through most of high school tho) and i was just listening and it changed everything. not that i’ve ever been cheating on, unless one of those Super Serious middle school boyfriends cheated on me and i don’t know about it. but i did relate to the song in an entirely different way.

and i was hooked.

i think i must’ve listened to a lot of her stuff on youtube all the time, because i remember shit like invisible and teardrops on my guitar and everything about the guy you like liking someone was else was EVERYTHING TO ME during in seventh and eighth grade, like wow. i know self titled is my least fave album, but those songs really are what my early teenage years were like.

her first album that i got was fearless, followed by her self titled and speak now (i’m assuming i asked for them as gifts, which is why it wasn’t chronological, but i don’t remember). but speak now came out in the fall of my sophomore year. right after i started crushing on a guy i’d known forever, who would start dating one of my best friends a few months later (and another good friend a few months after that), so you can guess that some of her older songs were fitting when that happened. well, the beginnings of that crush had me putting sparks fly as my ringtone for him and basically being head over heels in the best way possible.

sophomore year was really lonely, and taylor’s music was (and still is) one of the best things i had

and when we stopped talking so much, and i was convinced that he wanted nothing to do with me -- because the second friend of mine he dated told him i liked him, talk about betrayal (where was bad blood when i really needed it?) -- even though that probably wasn’t the case at all, and i was just being paranoid, it felt like the end of the world. and haunted was the song

i didn’t get over for him for a very long time. our friendship was very off and on, but that was probably my fault more than anything. i wanted to stay away and let him make the effort if he really wanted me in his life, but he didn’t really, and i kept coming back. but i think he just wasn’t that kind of person, which is sort of funny because now i’m the kind of friend who finds it really hard to put in the effort and reach out, though that particular friendship experience along with others may have something to do with that. anyway, i’m not here to psycho analyze myself.

we were probably the least close throughout junior year, but the whole off-on thing didn’t go away. we hung out close to the end of summer before senior year with two friends who had recently started dating and we had such a great time and i started having hope. and at least considered telling him how i felt, whether he knew i still liked him or not. and then a little bit into senior year, he started dating someone. and then red came out. red, my favorite album of all time.

he started dating someone. and i started distancing myself again. but once again, it never lasted. i wasn’t as lonely senior year as i had been the previous two years, but it wasn’t perfect. and he was one of few people who made me really happy back when that loneliness began, which i think is part of why i fell so hard and it was so hard to get over him. 

but red. god. i could talk about this album forever. i almost do? come back...be here? all too well? treacherous? obviously, a lot of the songs are very blatantly relationship/breakup songs. but i was able to take certain lyrics and they just summed up how i felt perfectly. so much of that album applied to what i was thinking and feeling and i loved it. all too well was my favorite song for a couple years, but i think for that time, i almost do was really the situation with us. how many times did i want to reach out to him, but had to tell myself not to? we talked things through towards the end of senior year, i explained how i liked him and felt like he wasn’t making an effort and why i kept distancing myself. and i thought things were better. for a little while, they were. i’m 22 now (ha), a college graduate, and i have not spoken to him since before we graduated high school.

that summer went by, freshman year of college went by, i still wasn’t totally over it. i sent him a letter beginning of freshman year, because i was Brave, and looking back it seems so stupid, but i needed that closure. only it didn’t really work, because i just got even sadder that i never heard from him again. but was i listening to all too well (hey, it might not have fit exactly, but it’s really fucking sad like i was) and say something by a great big world (okay, i know, not taylor, but it FIT -- also wow, imagine if she covered that, i would die) late at night and crying because i had never felt that way about anyone the way i did for him? yeah, i was.

now, 1989 came out during the fall of sophomore year. now i’ve never related as strongly to that one. in part, i think a lot of the album is very uh, contrived lyrically, but also i’ve only had a few crushes here and there over the last few years. but some of the lyrics DO go back to that situation i’ve been discussing. like, i was absolutely yell-texting my friend “where was “people like me are gone forever when you say goodbye” when i needed it???”

also bad blood. i had a few Bad Friendships in high school and you can hate that song and say it’s sexist all you want (it’s not, it doesn’t even use gender specific pronouns), but it’s SO RELATABLE.

so uh, yeah, now that i’ve written this ridiculous fucking essay, i just wanna say that taylor swift literally means so much to me. her music was there for me when no one else was, which sounds so cliche, but it’s true. i love her and i love her music and even though my opinion of her has shifted some over the last five years, i’m always gonna love her. she’s always gonna be the girl who had me sitting at a party and silently losing it because no one else had ever written how i felt so CLEARLY before.

i didn’t really become part of the fandom until after red came out and even more so after 1989 (i just didn’t follow every aspect of her life or what she was doing, i was just listening to the songs and vaguely aware of people she was friends with/dating/”dating”). i wish that i’d gotten tickets to red and maybe even speak now, but me and my sister did get to go to the 1989 tour in kansas city together and it was one of the most fun nights i’ve ever had.

i’m not naive. i don’t think taylor is one hundred percent honest or perfect or genuine or selfless. but i think she is a hell of a lot more genuine and selfless than a lot of people in this world. i know it’s weird, but i don’t think vocals are the most important part of being a singer. because like, look how many pop singers and indie dudes Cannot Sing Live. taylor's vocals have definitely improved over the last few years, but for me, it’s about those beautiful lyrics she writes. how straight up she is in her songs, even if i think a lot of the things her songs are based on are not totally genuine, ya know. a nineteen year old girl wrote dear john. a nineteen year old girl wrote that entire fucking album.

taylor swift is talented. she’s incredibly intelligent, she’s hilarious and snarky and sarcastic. she’s so fucking sweet to her fans, and you can say her niceness is an act but? it’s better than how many celebs are honestly just mean. like, there’s a reason all the fans and people who meet her (aside from a few celeb feuds) say how kind she is. personally, i prefer people to just be nice, unless the situation calls for acting otherwise. and most of the time, she’s stuck with being nice (that in no way means i think she’s in the wrong for calling out people who have been shitty to her, like john mayer, who is an abuser and deserves to be dragged through the mud for it).

it really horrifies me how much people wanna say a woman who has constantly been a victim, since she was just a child writing songs about boys, is just playing the victim. i will never know everything about her or the situations she’s been in with other people, but the way she’s treated is honestly despicable, and how i feel about her makes it so much more upsetting. i think she can handle it, i don’t think fans need to baby her, and i don’t think writing songs about it is bad. she’s made it very clear that she writes songs about her experiences from the beginning of her career.

so yeah, taylor getting attacked makes me sad, and i imagine it bothers her sometimes, but she’s probably more chill about it than i am. but i just love her so much, and i know not everyone is gonna like her, but seeing someone who means the world to me constantly super criticized over really minuscule things is really ridiculous and annoying and upsetting.

call her out on actual shitty behavior like you would anyone else, but god if you don’t like her or her music or something literally harmless that she does, just like, shut up about it sometimes. some people just wanna love her in peace.

[officialcolumbiauniversity]

Core in Review: Literature Humanities

De jure: Called “Masterpieces of Western Literature and Philosophy” on SSOL. A two-semester class that is basically your average literature class back in high school. Consists of two 2-hour seminars every week. Assigned portions of the book for every class, and you’re expected to arrive to class having read what was assigned for that day. The idea is that you read approximately one book per week. The discussion does not review summary too much, but rather goes straight into analysis. Depending on your instructor, you could have reading quizzes every week, or with every book, or not at all. Depending on your instructor, you could read 12 books, 15 books, or 12 books completely not on the general Lithum syllabus. Depending on your instructor, you could have a final that is mostly passage IDs, a final where you have to write several essays, or a final where you just have to memorize a page of some text verbatim. A lot of this class depends on your fucking instructor.

De facto: A lot of this class depends on your fucking instructor. I had the best instructor ever, so my class was lit, and this was possibly my favorite class freshman year. In fact, I’ll be writing my instructor a testimonial letter this summer, because she’s applying to be an actual professor here, and she absolutely deserves it. Anyway.

At this level and pace of reading, most people never fully read any of the texts, except the ones who do. And you’ll know who does because they all have sticks up their you-know-whats and mention it every time the word LitHum is about to fall out of someone’s mouth. They’re like vegans. I swear to God it’s 100% accuracy.

I’m just gonna warn you in advance that Shmoop covers way more than you need to know. I Shmooped maybe 85% of the texts this year, and touched maybe 8 of the books in person the whole year. In fact everything you find on Shmoop is essentially what happens in the class. You’re expected to know the general summary, we discuss the characters, analyze important things like the title and certain motifs, look at some quotes, that’s the whole class. So if you’re looking for a one-stop shop, Shmoop is the place to go.

This class can either be the bane of your existence or a welcome relief from your other classes, usually depending on your major. Humanities kids hate it because they want a deeper discussion than the cursory one offered in such a fast class (we spent three days on all of Crime and Punishment), and STEM kids either love it because it’s a nice change of pace or hate it because they already have so much work to do. I found myself loving it because it was nice to come to the same teacher and class after winter break and find a routine, and it was also a pretty chill class (my prof brought us baked goods almost every class).

They say you walk away with a newfound appreciation for Western literature and that’s pretty true. I really couldn’t see the point of reading all these dead people until after I took the final and it just kinda clicked. It’s nice to be able to discuss some of the basic concepts presented in something like Dante’s Inferno with literally any other Columbia alum.

Tips for acing the class:

Try to read at least the Shmoop on time.

Sucking your prof’s dick (I don’t mean literally but you know it couldn’t hurt) will help your grade. This can vary from things like asking a lot of really good questions in class to going to office hours more than once. But it definitely makes your instructor grade you more easily.

This is the only class I’ve come upon so far that really requires compartmentalizing time in advance. It’s so much easier to read on time if you just divide the section you have to read per day and read each part per day. It gives you a better idea of how far you’re falling behind and how much you can realistically read.

Take advantage of all the organized study sessions that come around during finals week. Finals for lithum are largely composed of passage IDs, where they give you quotes and you have to say the book, speaker, and context. The only way to get good at those is to practice them as much as possible, and you’re going to want to get your eyes and hands on as many as possible. So go to the study sessions.

Also create your own in your floor lounge. Some of my favorite memories of freshman year come from those lithum study sessions, at 2 AM when the lounge has the most people it’s seen since the required NSOP meeting.

If you bother to buy the books, make sure you have the right edition! I wasted so much time and money by having the wrong copies. Check the syllabus.

[iamadrianaelizabeth-blog]

Wish you were here

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Wish You Were Here

I’ve had this reoccurring nightmare since I was little. It started when I was around seven or eight either right before or right after my parents’ divorce I’m not sure. This wasn’t your average “oh no there’s a scary monster under my bed” dream. When I was younger it scared me to shit but now it’s just concerning that such a young mind could come up with such an extensive dream. All I can assume is that my parents were letting me watch some really scary movies without thinking I knew what was going on. At the time I probably didn’t know what was happening in the movies but my subconscious apparently absorbed whatever it was. However concerning the dream may be these days it makes me somewhat nostalgic. It makes me miss the times when I could wakeup my parents and force them to give me brownies and cuddle with me until I fell back asleep. Back when my biggest problem in life was that I couldn’t go play outside because it was raining. Mostly I miss the parts of the nightmare that were only a dream and not my current reality.

It starts out like a night at home my parents putting me to bed saying goodnight, the usual. Except for some reason my dad seemed to be rushing me through the whole process. Considering how normal it started out the first time I had the dream I thought it was real. For some reason I got up after my dad had put me to sleep, I guess to get water or something, when I noticed this man was at our door. I read somewhere that the mind is unable to create new faces

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so anyone you encounter in a dream is someone you have seen in your real life. This man standing at my door talking to my dad was an African American guy in his mid-thirties with an oversized afro wearing jeans and a white t-shirt. I wish I could describe his face because as I write this I can picture him, although it would be a very average face to anyone but me. The man stands at the door talking for a while when I notice that there is a U-Haul parked on the left side of our driveway closest to the street. We had a circular driveway. Just as I noticed the moving truck I heard a noise coming from the back door and saw two huge white guys had come inside and then the black guy pushed my dad and ran inside too. I don’t really know where my mom was during all of this commotion but I guess my mind didn’t want her in this part. After the guys are all inside our house my dad starts screaming at me to run and so we both did. Granted our house was a small three bedroom one bathroom house on the beach so not very many places to run and hide. As I’m trying to run and hide one of the guys comes out of my parent’s room (no idea how he got in there from the back door, but this is a dream after all) and grabs me. My dad trips and falls trying to stop me from being grabbed when the afro guy grabs him by the ankles. This is where the dream gets kind of fucked up. The guy tied my dad up while another guy brought in this giant chair with straps for the wrists and feet. After my dad is hooked up to this chair the guy pulls out this needle and sticks it in my dad’s arm. Almost immediately my dad dies and they roll him out to the U-Haul in the chair and just straight up leave. I don’t know why or who the guys were but they just drive away when suddenly my mom decides to make an appearance in order to comfort me. That’s when I always wakeup. Confused and scared as hell that my dad just died in front of me. I think what concerns me most about all of this is the way my dad died. My seven year old mind came up with a torture chair and lethal injection. Or the

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fact that this man, who I can picture so clearly as if he’s in front of me, is someone that I have actually come in contact with at some point in my life. When you think about it lethal injection is a pretty fast and humane way to watch someone die. Much less painful than pumping toxins into the body once a week.

Growing up I was always extremely close with my dad. Everyone at his work called me little Dave because I was his mini. I was very close with my mom too don’t get me wrong, but he was the guy who would make sure I always did my math homework but at the same time get me drunk on the weekends with my friends. I guess that’s why this dream shocked me so much as a child, seeing my best friend die in front of me was traumatizing to say the least. Little did I know that five years later I’d be going to doctors’ appointments with my dad watching a needle be stuck in his arm while he sits in a chair. It’s almost as if some higher power entered my dream in order to prepare me for my future. Which is bullshit but still something to think about. My dad didn’t die from being murdered by a needle or anything, yet somehow I think I would have preferred that.

When I was thirteen my dad was diagnosed with an extremely rare cancer in his trachea that no doctor in Florida had ever seen. One day he was walking around everything was fine and normal then the next day he was in an elevator and couldn’t breathe so he was taken to the emergency room. Luckily he worked in a hospital so it wasn’t a far trip. Everything felt like a dream that day. Probably due to the fact that I would have rather been having a nightmare so I could wakeup and everything would be normal and my parents would put be back to sleep telling me it was all a dream. But that wasn’t the case. Being pulled out of my eight grade English class while we were discussing comma splices and punctuation seemed great at the time until I saw

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my mom sitting outside on a bench waiting for me. When she told me they found cancer in my dad I didn’t believe her. My best friend in the whole world was now plagued with some demon and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. From then on out nothing seemed scary any more. My reoccurring nightmare was still there accompanied by ones far worse but somehow they didn’t make me feel anything. I was numb to it all. Or so I told myself. I wanted to be the person my stepmom and mom and baby brother had when shit hit the fan even worse. So I sat by and held his hand as he went to chemo and radiation treatments, and made him facetime me the whole time he was in Boston for surgery. For a while everything was better and seeming to shrink but cancer is a son of a bitch that likes to play games. For two years he went to appointment after appointment trying new experimental drugs that seemed to make everything worse. In the midst of all this chaos the universe threw in a little extra something just to stir the pot a little more. As if one parent withering away before my eyes wasn’t enough of a nightmare, my mom was diagnosed with breast and brain cancer. A huge “fuck you” from whatever higher power there is up in the sky. Being chased by a man with an afro seemed pretty appealing right about now. Being a sixteen year old girl dealing with all of the normal high school girl problems like boys and wanting to be in the right social scene but with the added depression, suicide attempts, and two dying parents is every little girls dream! I sure if I would have told one of my many therapists about my reoccurring nightmare they would have tried to psycho-analyze me and tell me it was just me being a kid scared of the future or scared my dad would forget about me when my parents got divorced. I’ve always thought therapists were full of it and people who go to them are just sent so they can be pumped full of Prozac until they aren’t an inconvenience to society or their families anymore. A little dramatic I know, but after you’ve done all the steps of

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therapy, grief counseling, and drugs over and over you become a little cynical of the system. But nonetheless I continued going through the motions with a small shred of hope that I would eventually be okay.

On March 21st 2012 after two years of constant agony my dad finally died. He didn’t get rolled away in a chair into a U-Haul and I didn’t wake up in my bed sweating and scared. As many times as I had seen my dad die in my dream I thought I would be prepared for the real thing and boy was I wrong. I didn’t cry, I didn’t scream or, ask to say goodbye to his body. A few days before I said my goodbye and told him it was okay to let go. He was no longer in pain and I no longer had to see my best friend suffer. To be honest I don’t really remember the three days after that or even his service. The whole time I had this weird feeling like I was in a sort of trance just floating through life, I can thank my brain for that because I don’t think I wanted to feel anything. No one spoke at his service except me. I had this image to uphold, of being tough and nothing could hurt me. What a fucking lie. I didn’t realize how actually bad off I was until I had to do all of it again when my mom started getting worse. The two years in between my dad dying and my mom dying I was a mess. Going from party to party blacking out every weekend, dating a drug dealer for the hell of it, until eventually I took a handful of pills and landed myself in a rehab facility baker acted. All I wanted to do was be with my mom but instead I was stuck in this building with heroin addicts and psychotic ex-girlfriends. Eventually I got my shit somewhat together and graduated high school and got into college. The day I moved into my apartment was the day my mom died. She had held on for so long to see me graduate and to make sure I made it safe to Tallahassee, even if she wasn’t completely there, she was there. Brain cancer has a way of taking over that person unlike any other cancer I had seen. Once again I didn’t cry or freak out. I

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held it together and knew everything would be okay. Except this time I believed myself a little bit more.

When we were assigned this essay someone in class asked if we could read something happier because everything we read or watched was depressing. I thought about writing about the day my brother was born after I had been an only child for twelve years, or about my first boyfriend and how stupidly attached I was to him later to find out that’s not what love is at all. I could have even written some complete bullshit feel good story that would have been more enjoyable to read and no one would have even known it was a lie. What I chose to write about is the raw and honest truth of my life. I also didn’t write about this to get sympathy points or for pity, I genuinely felt compelled to be real for once. Obviously there were happy moments throughout the awful times, I’m not completely on Poe’s level of sadness and depression. During this insane shit storm that has been my life I have been lucky enough to have people who care about my wellbeing and want me to better myself more than I could ever want them to. Obviously I still have my nightmare occasionally about the men breaking into my house and killing my dad, that’s why it’s called a reoccurring nightmare but as I said it’s somewhat solacing. At least when I have the dream it starts out normal and I get to hear and see my parents, even though I always know what happens next. The dying part doesn’t bother me anymore. What bothers me the most is that when my mom finally makes an appearance in the dream is when I always wakeup. For those split seconds of normality in the chaos of my REM state I feel genuine happiness. That’s a rare feeling for me these days so I like to hold on to it for as long as I possibly can. I’m not saying I’m never happy because that would be an exaggeration, but true and genuine happiness that what’s rare. Whatever insane thing happens to me next, and I know

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there will be something the universe doesn’t like to let me have a normal life for too long before flipping my world upside down again, I’ll be prepared for it. Or maybe I won’t. I thought my dream prepared me to see my dad die but I was wrong. Whether I’m prepared or not something will happen and ill face it without fear. In “Letters to Earth” Satan is looking down on mankind

and says “the earth is insane. Nature itself is insane.” Mark Twain wasn’t wrong when he said this. The earth is fucking insane.